Subject: Great-tailed Grackle; Snowy Owl; Gyrfalcon
Date: Jan 9 16:35:49 2001
From: Robert Sundstrom - ixoreus at home.com


Tweeters,

I saw the male Great-tailed Grackle in Stanwood this morning around
11:00a.m. Not knowing at the time that it had been called in to the Bird
Box at a new Stanwood location, I looked around town before turning it up
where several others have now reported seeing it - near Wolfkill Seed and
Feed, with a couple dozen Brewer's Blackbirds. This spot is downtown
Stanwood, at the corner of 271st NW and Florence Rd., where the grain depot
abuts the railroad - a stone's throw from the Scandia Bakery and Lefse
Factory. The flock was not in evidence at first but flushed up to the
utility wires from the nearby brush at one point, then sat there for 15
minutes.
Around noon there was one Snowy Owl visible at the Big Ditch Access of the
Skagit WRA. It was about 400m. north up the dike from the parking area, on
a big chunk of driftwood. There was an adult Prairie Falcon in the vicinity
working the foreshore, as well as a Peregrine.
The adult Gyrfalcon that others have reported near Snohomish was present at
one of its typical spots along the Old Snohomish-Monroe Hwy. at 2:30p.m.
>From 2nd St. in Snohomish, turn S. on Lincoln, which becomes the Old
Snohomish-Monroe Hwy. Shortly after leaving town the Hwy. crosses the
narrow Pilchuk River. 0.6 mi. south from this point is a sign for
Darlington Farm, then at 0.8 mi. is Westwind Farm. I saw the gray gyr'
working between the two huge bare trees in the field opposite Westwind Farm,
flying from the bare tree nearer Darlington Farm to the one opposite
Westwind. When it perched in the latter tree is was very hard to pick out
without a scope because of the density of the bare twigs.

Good Birding, Bob

Bob Sundstrom
Seattle, WA
mailto:ixoreus at home.com