Hi Tweets,

Martin Muller writes:

>Anyway, I can tell you that Stewart "loved" going out at night (as between
>midnight and two AM) and deliver prey, during migration time.

And while you're there, could you pick up a loaf of whole wheat and a quart
of milk? '-)

>From the looks
>of it, fresh prey (limp, intact, unplucked). Often high-contrast species, like
>for instance American Goldfinch, but also less-colorful, just more
>inexperienced immature European Starlings.

And we know Sabine's Gulls aren't the most inconspicuous birds around.

>During the early morning hours Stewart liked (still does I presume) to perch
>on the very top of the Washington Mutual Tower, 60+ stories up. He would sit
>on the east side of the cube on top, and peer around the corner to the west
>side (get that image? He literally sits there, body hidden, head sticking
>around the corner). From there he has an unobstructed view of Elliott Bay.
>Often he starts his stoop on some potential meal from up there, to the west. I
>always envisioned him doing the same thing at night, when the crossing from
>West Seattle to Magnolia, 2 1/2 miles of open water, must make some of these
>smaller, slower, birds as vulnerable as, dare I say, sitting ducks. Or he
>might just patrol the bay from great height.

Oh, *this* is the kind of thing that makes me just *love* Tweeters! What a
picture! And makes me wonder once again, with Peregrines and Bald Eagles
around, why are Northwestern Crows--the occasional prey of either--so casual
about crossing long stretches of water?

>BTW, I never saw so many Yellow-headed Blackbirds in Western Washington as
>during the video-tape analysis; prey deliveries to the peregrine nest box.

Where would the YHBL be coming from, Martin?

Hal Opperman writes:

>Most of
>the cuckoos I've located visually in Illinois and Minnesota (either
>species) have been up in the canopy, often out near the ends of branches,
>sitting quietly.

Aha! So *that's* how they do it. The few I've seen were invariably
slithering around in the canopy foliage.

>But maybe a cuckoo is actually rather conspicuous up there in the
>treetops, for a sharp-eyed aerial predator such as a Peregrine.

In habitat, I'd wonder, Hal, if they wouldn't show up more often in the
larders of Cooper's Hawks.

then Chris Hill writes:

>Second, these guys may well be commuting OUT of the checklist area to
>hunt. That well monitored female peregrine in Springfield, Mass, raised
>eyebrows one summer when she was unpaired by casually showing up and
>hanging around another nesting pair in Boston, clear across the state
>(which is only 90 miles, but still...). There'd she'd be in Boston during
>the day once or twice a week, and back in springfield each night. If that
>was the radius of her wandering, she covered a lot of acreage that summer.

Reminds me, wasn't there a radio-collared Gyr that hunted on the Skagit
Flats that commuted some 90 km (60 mi) twice a day between the flats and its
roost on some ledge way up in the Cascades somewhere? I'm 99.9% sure that
the Roberts Bank Jetty Gyrfalcon commuted daily from there to a roost
somewhere on Black Mountain or Mt. Hollyburn above West Vancouver, almost 40
km (25 mi). And it's almost certain that Gulf Island Peregrines routinely
mosey the 40-50 km (25-30 mi) across the Strait of Georgia (out of the
Greater Victoria Checklist Area into Greater Vancouver BC's area) to hunt
shorebirds at Iona, Roberts Bank and Boundary Bay; can't think where else
summer 'tween-migration 'grines would be coming from.

Michael Price We aren't flying...we're falling with style!
Vancouver BC Canada -Buzz Lightyear, Toy Story
mprice at mindlink.net