Dennis: Thanks for the neat report. If you are informed of the date,
please post.

Craig Corder
ccorder at eonet.com

Just a note for those of you interested in arcane bird records.

Bart Rulan, one of our local accomplished bird artists, just showed
me some
photos he took in June of this year at the Washington Mutual
Building in
downtown Seattle. He was photographing the nesting Peregrines,
and one of
them brought in a prey item. His slides show quite well a partially
plucked
YELLOW-BILLED CUCKOO, presumably just caught somewhere not
too far from the
nest. He's trying to determine the date on which the photo was taken
so he
can submit the record to the Washington Bird Records Committee.

The Yellow-billed Cuckoo bred in this region at the turn of the century
but
disappeared not long thereafter, for reasons quite unknown (a blight
on the
large caterpillars they favor? a decrease in the riparian woodlands
they
inhabit? descent on the area by Swiss cuckoo-clock makers?). Now
they are
quite rare, not even recorded annually, so each bird is noteworthy.

The Peregrine seemed quite satisfied to have got the bird for its state
list . . .

Happy Holidays to all you tweeters out there.

Dennis Paulson, Director phone 253-756-3798
Slater Museum of Natural History fax 253-756-3352
University of Puget Sound e-mail dpaulson at ups.edu
Tacoma, WA 98416
http://www.ups.edu/biology/museum/museum.html



ccorder at eonet.com