Tammy and I watched the two Peregrine falcons on the 11th ST bridge in
downtown Tacoma today. We had a great view from the street near the old
Weyerhauser building on the west side of the bridge. Both birds were on the
east counterweight of the bridge. We saw one of them hunt and bring back a
small bird - possibly a starling.

Our most remarkable observation: Groups of police officers patrolling the
bridge and pointing at us. Then three Washington State patrol cars and two
city of Tacoma police cars as they drove up to us and parked all of their
cars on the street around us to ask what we were doing. Each car was packed
with police officers, probably at least 12-15 police officers were
interested in what we were doing. They said we might be "scouts" for
anarchists planning mayhem over the next few days. It was news to us that
there will be labor marches in Tacoma over the next few days - something
about the Kaiser plant.

They didn't seem to believe that we were simply watching birds - we were
asked "so that's your story and you're sticking to it?". They took down our
drivers license numbers to check to see if we were WTO anarchists. It didn't
help us when we weren't able to produce a scope-view of the falcons on
request - of course as soon as they left, the Peregrines were out and about
again...

Greg Pelletier
Olympia, WA
mailto:greg at halcyon.com