>I don't know why we've lost nesting golden eagles from the Weyerhaeuser lands
>and I don't know if this phenomenon has affected other western Washington
>areas. I haven't heard of any recent golden eagle nesting in western
>Washington. I am sure there are records (Mike Smith can help here) but it
>may be much reduced and I supect it is because clear-cut logging practices
>are not creating the vast cut-over areas that were common in the 70s and 80s
>(or maybe the small,remnant patches of old-growth that the birds nested in
>are mostly gone now).
>
>Kelly McAllister
>Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife

This is a good place to point out that a lot of the changes in the avifauna
of western Washington in the past 5 decades have come from the
disappearance of these "vast cut-over areas" that Kelly mentions. We've
discussed this before on tweeters, but for a whole generation of the newly
joined, birds such as western bluebirds and Lewis' woodpeckers, previously
common, did *not* disappear because starlings took their nesting cavities.
They disappeared (I think) because the open country with scattered snags
that they favor essentially disappeared, with (1) the regrowth (or
development) of the clearcuts, and (2) the eventual demise of what snags
remained from that era. Bluebirds have been restored by provision of next
boxes, not so Lewis' woodpeckers.

Many other species that were common and widespread in that logged
environment--chipping sparrow and house wren are two--have pulled back to
remnant populations, mostly in oak woodland areas. Common nighthawk may be
another example. Native American burning practices maintained meadow areas
that were probably inhabited by some of these "savanna" birds, so it goes
back a long way.

I'm not in any way endorsing clear-cutting or slash burning, but there's no
question that they (or the natural burning that preceded them) maintained a
mosaic of environments that has actually become less varied in recent
years. It doesn't have to be either-or. I think we can have both a timber
industry and an abundance of natural environments if we humans could just
*work together* constructively. But our emphasis on free enterprise,
profit uber alles, and personal freedom (and you can add private-property
rights) seems to promote an in-your-face attitude that prevents such
cooperation.

Dennis Paulson phone: (206) 756-3798
Slater Museum of Natural History fax: (206) 756-3352
University of Puget Sound e-mail: dpaulson at ups.edu
Tacoma, WA 98416