Stuart: Yes, you have it mostly wrong. Calm down. In my 18 years of
watching and studying the shorebird migration at Bowerman Basin and other sites around
Grays Harbor, I have never seen an example of shorebirds being
"sacrificed" to raptors by the actions of allegedly Higher Primates. And
that experience includes a good number of years when only I and a handful
of students were present during the entire migratory movement, compared
with the often crowded scene there these days. But I gag a bit on the
current "shorebird festival"; it does tend to make a circus of the
phenomenon. When Janet Anthony initiated a "festival", back in the
eighties, it at least served the purpose of interesting some of the locals
in the migration. But now the Boosters and Lifters have got hold of it,
and at least some of them think they are going to make a buck off it
-either a buck or some boost to their egos. My own view is that the
beauty is best appreciated in the absence of hype, whether that hype is of
the "another roadside attraction" variety or the "come watch a falcon
kill a shorebird" variety. The whole scene (minus the human throngs) is
indeed beautiful, and the falcons are a part of that beauty; it is all of
a piece. Those of us who have a special affection for falconiformes need
to respect the sensibilities of those whose histories are different. I
sometimes regret that the Bowerman genie was let out of the bottle. I
don't like the stakes, the ropes, the "interpreters", the agency folks
with their badges.

But I always tell my students that the birds themselves remain beautiful,
despite the anthropogenic pollutants; we can still appreciate the beauty
of the birds. And I can remember the vicious opposition to the creation
of a refuge there. Only a handful of local residents favored a refuge
early on, and the Port fought it with every weapon they could muster.
Dixie Lee Ray's staff harassed me through the Evergreen administration,
and those in the then Game Department who knew and loved the site were
told to be quiet. In the late eighties a band of local loggers etc.
closed the bridge over the Hoquiam River for ninety minutes, to keep
birders from the Basin. And these people were successful, to the extent
that they prevented the creation of a refuge of *meaningful* size.

And since we started working there, in 1978, the feeding area accessible
to shorebirds has been reduced by at least 40%, as a result of
sedimentation. The US Fish & Wildlife Service, stewards of the site,
were supposed to keep that area open, but they've not done that to date,
and the numbers drop (for other reasons as well) every year. I heard
that the Service is studying the site for pollutants, worried that the
site might not be appropriate for a refuge.

But when my cynicism begins to peak, I remember a couple of people on the
asphalt road by the hangers in the early eighties, both of them in
wheelchairs, one of them a logger, who came to the site following a
local newspaper story (there is a *great* local reporter in Aberdeen). We talked to these folks, and set
up scopes by their chairs. Neither had ever looked through a scope, or,
probably, at a shorebird. They had a really good experience, and so did
those of us who talked with them. And so the original plans for the
refuge included an elevated boardwalk to run along the north side of the
willows south of the Basin proper. That hasn't happened yet, but maybe
it will someday, and maybe it will confine the human crowds as it
provides wheelchair access to the largest assemblage of spring migrating
shorebirds in North America south of Alaska.

Many of us, Stuart, can remember the days when falcons were much rarer
than they are today, and we all need to celebrate the fact that that
piece is back in the picture. Absolutely without disrespecting you,
Stuart (I am one of your fans), I would point to the possibility that a
bit of the Old Scots Gamekeeper blood may course through your veins!

And finally a minor point: Dunlin are usually involved only marginally
in the "ballets". Most of the birds that are pursued by Merlins and
Peregrines are Western Sandpipers, which make up about 85% of the birds
that move through there. The other 23 species we have recorded there are
usually on the fringes of the shifting flocks.

Steve Herman