What a wake-up call.

I was walking to work this morning, and had reached that numbed state where my
brain was imagining what it would be like to be back in bed, and was a few
feet from my building when *BOOM* out of the clump of ornamental trees shot a
bundle of brown, black, and white feathers, and lots of leaves. It shot past
me just a few inches from my face (the force of it passing blew my hair back)
and startled the woman behind me so much she dropped her box of doughnuts
(Doh!) and then it flew over to a clump of bushes on a steep bank about 50
yards away. I nabbed a co-worker with binocs and we went out to get a better
look at it.

It was a Northern Harrier, and it nicely flew low and evenly around the
parking lot, letting us get some incredibly close looks (he approached us,
we were trying to be nice and not get too close!).

Well, *I'm* awake now!

Although I'm wondering what a Northern Harrier is doing hanging out in NOAA's
parking lots, at 6:45am...

Susan Collicott
camel at serv.net
Seattle, WA