Hi all,
It was really sad to read the Brock Phillips post yesterday about the Glad
site in Lakemont in Southeast Bellevue that is going to get developed. Our
state ranks below average, 29th' in efforts to protect wildlife habitat and
open space.

About that white Bald Eagle that Alan Knue's friend saw at Swinomish. A
visitor at my booth gave me shots of a white Bald that he said had been
hanging out at Campbell Lake (the lake below Mt. Erie) for over two years, and
that was a couple years ago. The bird was light whitish gray all over and
looked female-sized.

Now one more thing about Eagles. I think adaptability, family upbringing and
geographical variation are all being given short shrift in the Eagle prey
discussions. I have heard second hand of a number of eagle nests where the
remains are all birds-particularly a Shaw Island pair that was only eating
gulls (Bud would know more about this). Secondly there are a lot of stories
of Eagles killing gulls that come from the Walla Walla field station,
Cranberry Lake and that general area. It seems logical to assume that this is
a skill that is not at all evenly distributed among Eagles. If so the fact
that many eagles don't or can't do it is somewhat irrelevant to discussing the
direction Eagles could take when once prime fishing territories are all
already densely occupied by other Eagles.

I am just curious about the future trajectory of Bald Eagles, which have been
increasing about 2% per annum in the region since the seventies. Going by
memory of the Skagit hawk watch results, they may already have gained
seriously at the expense of Red Tails, (again, Bud and others would know more
about this than I do) and there was a thread recently about the large drop in
Double Crested Cormorant and Great Blue Heron numbers around Seattle that is
likely attributable to Eagles.
I'm not running them down, but this is one heck of a bird, and it'll be an
interesting ride as it finally rebounds from two centuries of shooting.
The Beacon Hill juvenile Harris Sparrow is still here.

Tweeter by digest, Ed Newbold Beacon Hill Seattle
newboldwildlife at netscape.net




____________________________________________________________________
Get your own FREE, personal Netscape WebMail account today at http://webmail.netscape.com.