>> This is quite at variance with a statement made by Kelly Cassidy to explain
>> the apparent decrease in numbers over time: "The owls are spacing
>> themselves out better, now that they have presumably stopped moving south,
>> making it harder to see large numbers in small areas." They are actually
>> amazingly *un*spaced, presumably congregating in areas of owl prey.
>> Perhaps they spread out all over the landscape when they begin foraging at
>> dusk. What we don't know about them would fill at least a bread box.
>
>I agree with Dennis. The 'spacing out' part of the hypothesis clearly
>seems to wrong. Maybe the observer decline in interest is the best
>explanation for *apparently* decreasing numbers. As you say, the
>appeal declines when there are 900 instead of 24. (Or was that Dennis'
>sly way of trying to shame Tweeters into a Bushtit mapping project.)
>
>Kelly Cassidy
>
Kelly,

Maybe economists could calculate the "marginal utility" of one more bird
sighting, perhaps it's a sliding scale with at with rarities at one end of
the continuum and Starlings, Crows or House Sparrows at the other end.
Bushtits, and now Snowies, are probably in the middle somewhere.

Mike
Mike Waller
Manager of Operations
Woodland Park Zoo
5500 Phinney Avenue N.
Seattle, WA 98103
ph: (206)684-4057
fax:(206)684-4817
e-mail: mwaller at wolfenet.com