We have an explosion of Ruby Crown Kinglets in our back yard. They were
like flickering lights in the woods yesterday afternoon. What a
delight.

Jane Stewart
Research Center
Foster Pepper & Shefelman PLLC
(206) 447-6474
f(206) 447-9700
1111 Third Avenue, 3400
Seattle, WA 98101-3299

>----------
>From: mprice at mindlink.bc.ca[SMTP:mprice at mindlink.bc.ca]
>Sent: Sunday, October 12, 1997 12:10PM
>To: tweeters at u.washington.edu
>Subject: Re: Final Cut (was: Vitriol)
>
>Hi Tweets,
>
>Don Baccus writes:
>
>>>I would never want to be accused of being the "thought police" (neither my
>>intent or ability), but I'm certain that we can all be civil toward one
>>another in our efforts to better understand the birds in our lives.
>
>Agreed! As you will know from previous posts over the last three or four
>years, Don, I have always promoted the virtues and advantages of civility
>over rancor and tried to achieve it wherever possible, though not at the
>expense of flannelmouthing my language. You will also, I hope, acknowledge
>that over that same period, I've tried to contribute to that understanding
>by posting detailed observations, putting forward more than my share of
>theories and hypotheses to account for what I and others see, and asking a
>full share of questions generated by my curiosity.
>
>>Somehow some BC birding politics and strong personalities led our
>>discussion about funding conservation into strange waters. I don't know
>>anything about BC birding politics, and while watching the mudslinging is
>>mildly entertaining, if it were me I'd probably have the fisticuffs in a
>>less public forum.
>
>When I take a snide, public personal shot from one of the people in the
>local society's leadership (Eric Greenwood, speaking ex officio:
>"Unfortunately, there are some BC-based subscribers to Tweeters that don't
>want to acknowledge the work of these organizations and that don't belong to
>them."), I will defend myself equally publicly. I will not tolerate their
>doing to my name on this mailing list what they've done to it locally.
>
>Here there is no public forum. There *are* issues here, not personalities,
>and if it were up to me, that would be the ground on which discussion and
>debate occurs, but the favored tactic here is to make it appear a personal
>conflict between personalities: that way serious discussion and the
>challenging an official line on those issues doesn't have to be undertaken,
>and it becomes easier to portray a critic as a personally-troubled
>malcontent, impugning and discrediting what began life as his or her
>constructive analysis. Well, experience has taught the hard lesson that a
>spade is a spade is a spade, and calling it a dog will not make it bark.
>
>And I would equally mildly disagree that this has no bearing on some of the
>issues under discussion: the quality of a birding group's leadership is
>sometimes of great importance to the identification and effectiveness of
>response to conservation needs of an area. Sometimes, perhaps often, I
>wouldn't know, an internal political agenda or consensus can adversely
>affect that group's willingness and effectiveness. Ad hominem attacks often
>serve as a tactical distraction from these more serious issues. To use a
>metaphor I employed in a private post on this issue, it seems as if the
>messenger has enough bullets pumped into him, the problems go away.
>
>That said, neither the timing nor the arena of this little episode of
>mudwrestling was of my choosing and, like you, I *fervently* hope it is over.
>
>Back to birds. I have put this query out twice before with no response:
>third try, then.
>
>Last winter, there was an adult Western light-morph Red-tailed Hawk hanging
>aorund Thunderbird Stadium on the UBC Campus that had on its nape a distinct
>white circle with an inverted dark equilateral triangle within it, as on
>dark-morph Rough-legged Hawk (see plate 15, Hawks, Clark & Wheeler).
>
>Can someone tell me more about this mark, which I've never seen before on a
>Red-tail? Is this something common to this or other morphs? *Any*
>information would be welcome.
>
>Michael Price We aren't flying...we're falling with style!
>Vancouver BC Canada -Buzz Lightyear, Toy Story
>mprice at mindlink.net
>
>