154 Union Bay 



stranger who observes the performance invariably comments 

 on it. 



This is the type of routine that goes on in the marsh, the 

 kind of news which, if it concerns people instead of swamp 

 birds, finds a place in the local column of the neighborhood 

 paper. Such news gathering in the city requires much leg 

 work and at times becomes most boring. It is a large part of 

 a reporter's job, but each of them knows, as my marsh experi- 

 ence had taught me, that behind all of this routine lies an- 

 other field full of glamour and excitement. It is the prospect 

 of getting into that field that keeps a reporter on the job, 

 and it often brings him back after he thinks he has quit 

 permanently. Constantly, like the prospector following his 

 burro over the hills, he can keep up his interest by thinking 

 that this might be the day— the time when the unexpected 

 could happen and furnish him a famous story. 



The marsh can be compared with the city, my visits with 

 a reporter's. There are the usual incidents involving the 

 regular residents and frequent visitors, the common events 

 such as the two examples. And then in the background is 

 the other field of the more infrequent but infinitely more 

 dramatic and impressive. This principally concerns the ar- 

 rival, the stay, and the departure of the important and ir- 

 regular visitors, those guests with reputations as international 

 travelers. Then, too, we occasionally see creatures with curi- 

 ous habits, striking characteristics, and birds which are com- 

 mon on the seacoast or beyond the mountains but almost 

 unknown in our area. The sight of these strangers stimulates 

 the marsh observer just as the sight of some rare book excites 

 a collector, and the opportunity to see them is always a 

 great privilege. These are the types of incidents that I have 

 in mind: 



East of the Cascade Range and not much more than a 

 hundred miles away lives the loveliest of all North American 

 blackbirds, the yellow-headed. To look at one is to see gold 



