Hi Tweets,

I picked up a road-killed Saw-whet on the Tulalip Indian Reservation (near
Everett, WA) yesterday. Unfortunately it had suffered permanent press and
was unsuitable for salvaging for a museum specimen. It was unbanded, too,
so I left it by the roadside. I also went out pre-dawn one day last week
to do a little owl-scouting for an upcoming Christmas Bird Count, and had
two Saw-whets respond at the first place I stopped. So it seems, based on
limited looking, like there are quite a few Saw-whets "out there" in
winter in W. Washington. Is this the normal state of affairs, or might
this be a "good year" for them, as is happening back east, where
migration banding stations have caught record numbers?

In glancing at Christmas bird count totals, I haven't seen big numbers on
W Washington counts (as compared with, e.g. some northern California
counts, where 20+ saw-whets is not an unusual number). In fact, I think
that the Christmas count circle that includes the three owls I saw this
month may never have recorded a Saw-whet before (I'm not 100% sure about
that, though). I know that there are some energetic owlers out there -
are the low totals on local christmas counts due to low numbers of
Saw-whets, or to people not looking? How often do you expect to find this
species in winter around here?


Chris "full of questions" Hill
Everett, WA
cehill at u.washington.edu