Greetings from a snowy day on the Palouse, where today there seems to
be a Rough-legged Hawk on every other utility pole.

My thanks to Tweeters, which once again has made my coffee break a
highlight of my day: 007, Tromsoe winters, long billed murrelets,
fashionably late arriving Varied Thrushes in their formal attire...

Russell Link wrote:
>>I'm interested in communicating with people who can confirm nest box
>>usage by the following birds in WA, OR, and southern B.C: hooded
>>merganser, common merganser, common goldeneye, barrow's
>>goldeneye, flicker, piliated woodpecker, downy woodpecker, hairy
>>woodpecker.

and Michael Price replies:
>Kiddies, can you say 'resonant cavity'?

Yes, I have first hand experience with the sound.

Russell, you didn't include N. Idaho in your area of interest, but I'll
pass this along regardless. A few years back I put up large birdhouse
with a 5" entry hole 50 feet up in a ponderosa pine a couple of hundred
feet from my house, wondering whether an owl might like it. No, but the
flicker did. The noise was equivalent to his previous drumming on the
siding of my house just outside my bedroom window, but less destructive.
(I've since recommended this method to neighbors who have complained about
flickers turning their siding into pegboard...)

Tom Besser
Moscow, Idaho
tbesser at turbonet.com