Gene Hunn, Seattle, hunnhome at accessone.com

Poor Tom's taking the heat for his comments re. the inefficient scheduling
of Washington State Christmas counts. I'd just like to second the motion
that it would be much better if our counts could be more evenly distributed.
I've often wished I could participate in a count but it always directly
conflicted with another that I was committed to. I suspect many of the
state's most active birders would participate in twice the number of counts
they now participate in if they were better distributed. The idea that one
can't get a decent count total except on the first weekend presumes that
that is the primary goal of the counts, to maximize the species and numbers
totals. However, they are supposed to be winter bird censuses. If a large
fraction of the birds leave between 20 December and 1 January those birds
are probably not going to winter anyway, so what we're really counting are
late fall migrants. What is more important in the long run is to hold the
count every year at about the same time and to get the best coverage
possible. To that end the participation of a few "hot shots" from across the
state to the participant list might add a significant dimension that would
otherwise be missed.