Hey tweets, some young birders and I are trying our best to set a new record for most birds seen at the Fill in one year. The record is 175, and we are very close.

We missed some species that should have been automatic (or at least doable) but weren't, and I was wondering if any of you in the birding community saw some? If you can document a sighting, when did you see it?

Here's a list of our misses:
Sora
Pectoral Sandpiper
Lesser Yellowlegs
Wilson's Phalarope
Olive-sided Flycatcher
Townsend's Warbler
MacGilivray's Warbler
Evening Grosbeak

P.S. It should noted that when I speak of setting a record, that would include only the years between now and the mid-1980s, when I began to keep such records. People before the 1980s apparently didn't record total species seen in a year. It's entirely possible that more than 175 species were seen in earlier years, partly because there were just more birds then, but also because Seattle itself was less built up and had more bird habitat.

On the other hand, though we have lost a heartbreaking amount of shorebird and prairie bird habitat at the Fill in recent years (and thus no longer host such species), natural succession and human plantings have increased certain habitats such as groves of tall trees, fruit- and berry-bearing plants, and denser riparian cover, thus bringing us birds that were not present in earlier days. Hutton's Vireo is one such example, as is Red-breasted Nuthatch.

Altogether since 1898, there are have 262 species found at the Fill.

- Connie, Seattle

csidles at constancypress.com <mailto:csidles at constancypress.com>
constancesidles at gmail.com <mailto:constancesidles at gmail.com>

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