We've noticed that our juncos (all dark-eyed) seem to be re-exploring the yard as if they don't know where the feeders are, which is a little weird. My sister's from Oregon, dark-eyed, gets lost a lot.

We saw our second American Bittern of the week last night on the Big Ditch, slightly northwest of Stanwood in N.W. Snohomish County. First was off Red River and Hillaire Roads in Whatcom County a week ago today. We also saw a lot of Red-wing Blackbirds and a few Northern Harriers at the Bg Ditch.

We sat and watched a male kestrel for about 20 minutes as it ate most of a starling, perched on a wire on Kickerville Road, Whatcom county, just north of Alder Grove Road.

We saw two Brandt's Cormorants on piling at the old fish loader near Cherry Point, on Gulf Road just south (on the beach) of Henry Road, Whatcom County.

Shortly afterward we saw a Rough-legged Hawk in a thicket off Henry Road west of Gulf Road, Whatcom County, and then followed it to a field near the archery course on Lake Terrel Road and Unick Road.

On the way home we stopped to see the Northern Hawk Owl on Stein Road, and it's still there as of 3 p.m. today.


Jack & Linda Kintner
Blaine, WA
kintner at nas.com


At 12:28 PM 3/3/01 -0800, you wrote:
>Hi folks,
>
>I don't know whether this is Earthquake-related, or just part of normal
>winter movements.
>
>For the past 2-3 weeks, most of the juncos in my yard & neighborhood had
>been here for a while. The majority of the birds at my feeders had been
>banded through the winter, and when I've recently operated my mist-nets for
>banding, I have been getting mostly re-captures of previously-banded birds.
>
>Friday morning, I noticed that hardly any of the juncos were banded. I set
>up the nets, and of the 15 juncos I've captured yesterday and this morning,
>only one had been previously-banded: And *that one* was the recapture of
>the bird Don Norman had banded at Fort Lewis last summer! The Ft Lewis site
>and my yard are about equally-distant from 'Ground Zero' of the temblor.
>
>It may be hard to tell, unless the birds are marked, but I'm wondering if
>anyone else noticed that there has been a shift in the junco flocks since
>the earthquake? Did these flocks decide to 'get the heck out of Dodge'?
>Gene Kridler, have you seen anything unusual up on the Strait?
>
>Jon. Anderson
>Olympia, Washington
>festuca at olywa.net