Subject: Caracara
Date: Feb 1 19:33:21 1998
From: <jschmitt at sprintmail.com> - <jschmitt at sprintmail.com>


Just a quick note: My mother and I went up to Neah Bay today, rain and
all and were just about to give up and leave after not finding the
CARACARA in any of the previously noted locations, when I decided to
drive through the residential areas south of the beach. Low and behold,
there it was perched in someone's backyard, with kids walking by
obliviously under it! As we pulled out scopes, several other birders
arrived. The house which belonged with the aforementioned backyard
spouted a curious teenager out the window, wondering what everyone was
looking at in his backyard. He yelled " What you all looking at?" When
we replied that we were looking at a rare bird, he looked as if he was
thinking that all whites were mad. After a few minutes his little
brother came wandering out to take a look and we let him look through the
scope---what a great response! He was thrilled. Soon big brother came
out also and took a peek. He was shocked and thrilled. He said " I
never seen a bird looked like THAT before! It came from Mexico? What's
it doing here?" Don't we all wish we knew! My immense pleasure at
seeing this bird was tripled by being able to share it with these young
men. Soon after, it flew off towards the beach. We followed and found
it perched at the very west end of the beach in an alder on the hill. We
watched it for some time and spoke with the very nice people who first
noticed it on the fourth. They have been observing it every day and
mentioned that someone wanted to know if it was banded--it is NOT. We
saw it's legs very clearly in the scope and they were clean of bands.

Joanne Schmitt
jschmitt at sprintmail.com

"The earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs,
but not every man's greed."
- Mahatma Gandi