On the way to drop off recycling this morning I found a beautiful male blue-winged teal preening near 7751 Riverside, and there was a PB grebe upriver from him. On the return trip both were not seen, but there was a pair of Common mergansers on a rock at the beginning of Pony Pasture Rapids and another female flying around near them. I saw COMEs 4/5 last year not far upriver, but is this a little late? Swallows were out there along with what appeared to be Bonaparte's gulls in breeding plumage. It was gray and drizzling, so all were a pleasant surprise. Yesterday afternoon at the Wetlands the gulls appeared to be catching whatever the swallows and purple martins were eating above the surface of the river. Jan Richmond