A Flammulated Owl is softly calling "boot...boot...boot" in the trees (we
have a nice pine and fir stand) outside our home as I write this north of
Wapato WA. This is the 2nd record away from the mountains in Yakima County -
the other was an individual found dead (specimen now at the Burke Museum)
collected in a PVC pipe where it apparently got caught trying to catch a
vole also here north of Wapato 15 September 1981.

This record provides evidence of a movement by this species away from the
mountains earlier than I imagined. What would prompt this little moth (and
beetles) specialist to leave the ponderosa pines and Douglas firs of the
Cascades during this protracted hot spell when those woods are literally
"crawling with moths?"

Andy Stepniewski
Wapato WA