Hello Tweeters,
I was surprised to see Ned Brinkley's summary of H. Fran's birds on
tweeters! Mike & I were part of the group at Jorday Lake that had birds
reported by Will Cook in a slightly earlier post about the hurricane
dropout. Thought y'all (see how long I've been away from Washington)
might like to know that one of you was also there.

Birding was pretty interesting and, while we didn't see the really rare
stuff that arrived very late in the day (Audubon's shearwater, for
instance), we had a fine time. 8 sp. of pelagic terns in an inland lake
is good for any day! The terns and laughing gulls looked right at home
on the little bit of sand beach.

Incidently, the next day (Sat.) nearly all of the birds had gone, with
only Common and Black terns abundant. All 200 laughing gulls had already
left, as well as the other terns.

Lest you think we weren't roughing it, we had to drive over flooded
roads, around a tremendous number of downed trees (100 year old oaks) and
power lines. Power at our house went out at 1:30AM on Thursday and
wasn't restored until 7:00PM on Monday. We didn't miss the lights so
much as the AIR CONDITIONING. We just got out the camping stoves and
"camped". Except, of course, it was more comfortable since we could
sleep in a bed and get out of the mosquitos.

btw, on Friday morning, when it was still fairly windy and raining, I was
reminded of a day last February in Aberdeen, when there wasn't a single
bird at the Ocean Shores jetty because the rain & wind were pouring off
the ocean!

While I'm at it, I want to thank Mary Poss and other tweets who sent us
wonderful directions to birding spots in the Okanagan. We went there and
saw both 3-toes in adjacent trees, feeding young! Pretty neat.

Also had all 4 species of chickadees in WA - the first time we've had
that pleasure!

Lois Schultz
lois at acpub.duke.edu
Music Cataloger, Duke University

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In Looking-Glass Land you can't get very far,
You must run like the wind just to stay where you are!
As for those whose ambition is getting ahead,
They must run twice as fast!", her Imperial Majesty said.

Lewis Carroll. Through the Looking Glass
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