Hello Tweets,

I've been wondering if anyone else has noticed the lack of
Band-tailed Pigeons this spring and summer. I've had them in my back
yard and elsewhere around the Matthews Beach area every year, nearly
year round, for well over a decade, but they seem to be locally
extirpated or else gone elsewhere,,. all within the last year! Has
anyone in this area seen them? Pigeons are such cool birds (possibly
excepting urban rock doves, I hate to loose a species like that,
especially when it's held on for so long against all urban
odds...I've always associated these forest pigeons with the pine-oak
of the SW and the Sierras of W Mexico, and to have them in the
Seattle backyard was a real treat! I was never sure where this group
found its salt -- can anyone on the list shed some light on that? I
know the Band-tails of Matthews Beach long pre-date MY arrival on the
scene (moved to neighborhood in 1986), so their disappearance, if
that is what it is, should be an "environmental consequence" worthy
of some further note and analysis...

Mark