Subject: Re: starling news
Date: Sep 8 21:31:39 1998
From: Tom Foote - footet at elwha.evergreen.edu




On Tue, 8 Sep 1998, Dennis Paulson wrote:

[snip..]


> (who could like those mobs of raucous teen-aged starlings in midsummer?),


Dennis et al--

..last night I had occasion to go into Bayview market in OLY
and the parking lot treees were full of starling..hundreds and
maybe even a thousand or more..but, in any case, lots of them.
It was 7:45 PM and getting quite dark.

I ran into a birder friend this AM on my walk down town and
I told him about the starlings and he mused that they might
have left the warehouse that burned last night as some
of them at least used it as a roosting place...interesting
thought. That building was engulfed at 9 PM and was a total
loss. It does dovetail with the time I saw the birds as it
was an hour or so before the trucks arrived on the scene..
that would mean there was enough smoke in the building to
get the birds concerned an hour or so before it was totally
in flames...the fire was 4 or 5 blocks from where they
were making the racket in the trees.

no way to prove those birds came out of that warehouse, but
it sure was a mess of them in the dark when it should have
been time for them to be in the roost.

just mumbling to myself...

Tom