> As far as Purple Finches, this bird may not be fighting for it?s
> life but it seems like it?s in a general retreat from the urbanized/
> suburbanized areas, and this could be a really bad sign for the urbanized
> future. Both Christmas count and Breeding Bird Census show big long term
> Purple Finch declines.

We live in a rapidly "suburbanizing" neighborhood in Thurston County, just
west of the Nisqually delta. I've been alarmed by the rapid decrease in
Purple Finches, over just three or four years. I'm talking breeding birds,
here - five years ago they seemingly sang from every other fir top in the
neighborhood. This year, I haven't heard *one* yet. We still have
scattered groupings of firs and hemlocks, but as empty lots have been cut
and developed, the overall number and density of trees has decreased. Could
there be a threshold of tree density or "woodlot" size, below which House
Finches replace Purples?

> Secondly I defer to your greater birding ability, but I disagree that
> they are in ?decent? numbers now anywhere in the central Puget Sound
> Basin. (Please, Inhope to be convinced I?m wrong there and would be
> ecstatic if I were).

Nighthawks are another concern down here. The local population appeared to
increase until about 1996, when they were common to abundant in our
neighborhood. (I counted over seventy in the air at once in July of '95.)
The numbers since have dropped, but both the peak numbers and the following
decline may have been the result of land "manipulation". First,
second-growth woods were cut, leaving over two square miles of clearcuts.
Then, some of those clearcuts were converted to golf courses. I guess it
remains to be seen which of these two disturbed habitats is more attractive
to nighthawks.

Eric Kraig
Olympia, WA
kraige at oclc.org