Howdy tweeters,

I just learned that a male Costa's Hummingbird spent 6 weeks at a feeder in
rural Pierce County this fall. It was photographed and will surely be added
to the list of Washington's birds by the Bird Records Committee when it
meets in November.

This is the second new bird for the state that has appeared on the property
of someone who didn't want to be visited by birders, the first a Summer
Tanager in Skagit County last winter. Almost surely other very rare birds
appear at local feeders and either (a) remain un(or mis-)identified, or (b)
are correctly identified as something out of range but the significance of
this is lost on the observers. We are only aware of the third alternative
(c), in which the observers identify the bird correctly (in both of these
cases by calling experienced birders and asking them to confirm) and
understand its significance but don't want the visitors generated by any
publicity. I guess we can expect additional occurrences of (c) as more and
more people feed and become knowledgable about birds!

That's the news.

Dennis

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