Hey tweets, the Fill has been birdy but not rare-y. Yesterday was perfectly lovely, though, with ribbons of silve mist wrapping around the lake, molten gold in the early morning sun. The light was ethereal, the birds chips of ebony in silhouette.

There has been a SLATE-COLORED DARK-EYED JUNCO foraging around the picnic tables and Youth Farm - still present over the course of some days. A HAIRY WOODPECKER has also been in the area, first spotted during the CBC in Yesler Swamp and found again a couple days ago in Corporation Yard Pond. Hairies are *extremely* rare at the Fill, but maybe this is the Year of the Woodpecker. It's still January and I have seen Downy, Hairy, Pileated, Northern Flicker, and Red-breasted Sapsucker. If that Red-naped over at the Arboretum ever takes a notion to fly across the water and pay a visit, my life would be complete. Well, I'd still hope for an Acorn - there was one at nearby Magnuson some years ago, recall. Oh, and perhaps a Lewis's too - Gene Hunn reports in his book "Birding in Seattle and King County" that Lewis's used to appear regularly on the UW campus, when there was still some forest there, I guess.

On Saturday, my artist colleage Hiroko Seki and I gave a poetry reading/painting demo of our new book, "Forty-six Views of Montlake Fill," at Kinokuniya Bookstore in Uwajimaya. Hiroko warmed up by painting a few images of Ospreys, on the theory that Ospreys are our *real* "seahawks." Passersby (90 percent of whom were wearing some kind of Seahawks apparel) were entranced. So Hiroko ordered me to go off and compose a Seahawks poem on the spot. I guess she figured if she can paint a bird in two minutes or less, I ought to be able to write about one in the same amount of time. Yikes.

So I cudgeled my poor brain, and here is what I came up with, a tribute to our wonderful football team, our terrific fans, and best of all, one of our most beautiful wild raptors:

Fly high,
bright eagle of the sea and sky.
With twelve beats of your wings,
you have taken our hearts away.

- Connie, Seattle