Hi tweeters
In 1989 and 1990 I volunteered with the Hawk Migration count at Neah
Bay up at Cape Flattery, Washington. We spent a lot of time looking for
hawks that didn't come (most years). However, we saw MANY MANY MANY
hummingbirds hanging around at the same time ( the peak time is the first
week of April). We speculated that Cape Flattery was a geographical
migrant trap that funnelled all kinds of birds to the northwestern point,
at which time they had to decide how best to get over the 13 miles of
Straits of Juan de Fuca. My sense was that the Rufous Hummingbirds hung
around for several days, stoking up on nectar from the salmonberry and
then took off. Usually by the end of that week, the hummingbirds were
hard to find.
SO I'm a big proponent of a coastal migration route, at least.
Janet Partlow
partlowj at elwha.evergreen.edu

On Wed, 13 Mar 1996, Clark Blake wrote:

> The data are a little sparse but it looks like there could be two migration
> paths. Those using the coast were as far north as the Columbia River by
> 2/9. Need data from farther north including west coast of vancouver island
> to support this. The other group seems to have gone up the Willamette-Puget
> lowland, reaching Longview by 3/8, Olympia, 3/9, and Guemes, 3/13. Should
> be in Bellingham this afternoon! (i couldn't find any yesterday).Could also
> be an even
> later route, east of the cascades, but no word there yet. Keep reporting!
> Clark Blake phone: (360) 650-3595
> Department of Geology fax: (360) 650-7302
> Western Washington University
> Bellingham, WA 98225
>
>