On Thu, 6 Mar 1997 23:40:58 -0800 (PST) Christopher Hill
<cehill at u.washington.edu> writes:

>Where I used to bird in Western Massachusetts, birders were much more
>avid about owling than here in the Pacific No..... I mean in Cascadia,
>probably because there are not that many other interesting birds in
>New England in winter.

Hi -
I have to disagree wtih your statement about New England's winter birds.

I don't know about western Massachusetts, but certainly New England as a
whole has some very interesting birds in winter. This winter, New
England has had Harris' sparrow (interesting to us), ivory gull, northern
hawk-owl, boreal owl, bald eagle, tufted duck (along with all the other
ducks that frequent the coast in winter), little gull, Iceland gull,
black-headed gull, greater white-fronted goose, etc., etc. There's a
golden eagle on the Western Massachusetts Rare Bird Alert as I write this
(again, of interest to us, but possibly not to western birders).

You just have to know where to look!

Cathi Pelletier, Waterbury, CT Heronwing at juno.com
"What fun we had then!
We reveled in sunshine then,
And skinned both our knees."