-----Original Message-----
From: Jerry Blinn

>No wonder there are only about six Red-tailed Hawks in the Kent >valley...

Thanks for the reminiscences, Jerry. While I read this, my radio is tuned
to KIXI and is very appropriately playing Christmas and other music from
"back when" I was dating and first married and then watching my kids grow -
and did not have the time to do any bird-watching yet .. ;- ) ...

Yours is the story of "the country". Mine is "the city". When I first
came to Seattle to my little neighborhood, there were vacant lots
and mansion-type homes on the "main street" that carried the
traffic outahere and backhome.

I watched the homes on the intersection corners go first - they became
gas stations, banks, and little mom-and-pop stores. Then the intervening
homes came down and became apartment buildings. Now it's an almost unbroken
row of multilevel condos of all styles with businesses on the street level.
The only land left to build on is more vertical than horizontal, but that
doesn't stop builders, they sink shafts to what they claim is bedrock, and
build monster houses in midair - on pilings - with just the driveway
touching soil, and sometimes even the driveway is a cantilevered ramp .....

Where I used to see California quail going single file along the kids paths
through the vacant lots, each with that ridiculous little feather bobbling,
I'm lucky if I see an occasional pigeon or house sparrow in the
landscaping. It's only the migratory birds that provide interest a few
months out of the year and even they are neither as plentiful or varied as
to type as they used to be.

And you're right - man is the only life form on this earth whose numbers
have not - ever - diminished since the plague years centuries ago, and we
replenished that supply in probably less time than it took to originally
reach pre-plague figures. But a great millenium will soon be upon us, and
this is the season of hope and good cheer .....

Toni Hawryluk
Seattle
tonihawr at email.msn.com