Well, I hope the person planning a field trip to Nisqually last weekend wasn't
too disappointed.

We are really in the doldrums. I spent a few hours there today, and there were
simply very few birds. Even fewer after the hiker snuck up on me as I was
intently peering into some brush to find a skulking little yellow-green bird.
"HEY! ARE THERE ANY BIRDS IN THERE!!?" "Not now."

Only birds of note:

Clouds of starlings.

Three Black-throated Grey Warblers.

An accipiter, at high altitude, sharing space with a circling "kettle" of
swallows. He was circling right along with the swallows, and swallows were
constantly peeling off and dive-bombing him. It looked like a B-17 in the middle
of a hundred Messerschmits.

I don't know if the hawk was attracted to the swallows, or if a hundred swallows
decided to mob this hawk, or if the hawk and the swallows were simply sharing a
helpful thermal and the swallows were just doing what they are designed to do.
The whole active scene drifted at least a mile to the east before I quit
watching.

Jerry


E-mail from: Jerry Blinn, 26-Aug-1996