Hi tweeters,

Don't get too surprised if you see a Laysan Albatross in the next few days.
HOWL just called me and said they had one (came in to Seattle on a barge)
they were going to release. I recommended the outer coast, and I think
that's where they'll put it, but I don't know if expediency (the bird has
regained its weight, and they want to get it back out in nature quickly)
will dictate otherwhere.

Those of you who know about the Laysan Albatross in southern Puget Sound a
few years ago may say "hmmm" to yourself with this revelation. I'm not sure
if the point has been sufficiently emphasized in the birding community that
wildlife rehabilitators get in a lot of sick or injured birds, nurse some
of them back to health, and release them. They try to release them in an
appropriate habitat, but it may be some distance from where it was picked
up and, more rarely, some distance from where it normally occurs.

I remember being thrilled by seeing an immature Swainson's Hawk one October
near Reifel Refuge in BC, figuring I had found a bona fide fall vagrant,
not only out of place but much later than expected. Then I saw another and
still another! It turned out a whole nestful of them from interior BC had
just been released the day I arrived there. One wonders what happened to
them, released a month or two later than they would normally be leaving the
region. Could they possibly have made it to Argentina? Are they the source
of an unexpected wintering bird in California? I think many rehabbers
aren't cognizant of their ability to cause cardiac arrest in birders by
their choice of a release site and time.

Probably many of you don't know about the Costa's Hummingbird that was
discovered in Anchorage, Alaska, some years ago (I think it was in winter,
but I'm not sure). It was captured (perhaps moribund?), and a big thing was
made of Alaska Airlines flying it off to sunnier climes for its own health.
It was released in *Seattle*, and there still is no record of this species
from the state, so it would have caused quite a hubbub in the admittedly
unlikely event it had been found at someone's feeder here! I knew about
this human-assisted displacement only because someone sent me a clipping
from the newspaper.

And on a less cosmic scale, I found a singing Gambel's White-crowned
Sparrow near Salmon La Sac in June a few years ago, which would have been
quite exciting except that I knew a whole bunch of them had been released
near Cle Elum late that spring from a research lab. And I wouldn't be
surprised if these few instances that I can relate are the tip of some
bird-release iceberg.

This is probably why I'm a bit of a skeptic about the occurrence of some
vagrants . . .

Dennis Paulson, Director phone 253-756-3798
Slater Museum of Natural History fax 253-756-3352
University of Puget Sound e-mail dpaulson at ups.edu
Tacoma, WA 98416
http://www.ups.edu/biology/museum/museum.html