At 09:03 PM 3/17/99 -0800, you wrote:
>Fellow birders,
>
>Yesterday (Tuesday), while checking the Lower Woodland Park (Seattle) Bald
>Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) nest for signs of possible incubation
>(looking for a bird immobile, hunkered down in the nest) I watched the
>(subadult) female standing in the nest, gazing at nothing in particular (it
>seemed) most of the time. No egg(s) yet, therefor.
>
>Suddenly she turned her head and looked up. I scanned and scanned and
>finally saw a tiny dark dot, which, on closer inspection through the scope,
>turned into a first-year Bald Eagle descending rapidly out of the south. It
>ended up circling over the lake in wide, lazy, circles, still 300 meters or
>so up, eventually drifting out of view to the north.
>
>The female eagle took to gazing some more, only to repeat the maneuver again
>at 12:30. I gazed up again but at first could not find anything. Finally,
>after a minute or so, two dots dislodged themselves from the white clouds
>and became plainly visible against the blue sky. They were waaaaay up there,
>I estimate close to 1000 meters. Even through the scope (25x) I got nothing
>but white. However, the fact that the birds were "without noticeable heads"
>and had rounded "thick" wings and their bodies appeared evenly tapered front
>to back, led me to believe they could not be anything but Snowy Owls (Nyctea
>scandiaca). They were gliding the whole time we (the eagle and I) watched
>them, heading north, roughly over Aurora Avenue.
>
>Never seen that before. I know it always pays to look for the reason why any
>bird you're watching suddenly looks up, but this was an unexpected treat.
>
>So what do the books say about Snowy Owl migratory behavior?
>
>Martin Muller, Seattle
>MartinMuller at email.msn.com
>


It sounds like I-5 was all jammed up so they decided to take Aurora.

Denny Granstrand
Yakima, WA

Denny Granstrand