Subject: Belted Kingfisher tries for the Darwin Awards
Date: Feb 22 14:23:55 2003
From: Cliff - cliff at cliffdrake.net


Hi folks,

I didn't see this, but I was told about it by a worker down at the locks. A
Belted Kingfisher dove for a fish in the small lock, not unusual, but what
the Kingfisher didn't realize was that the lock was being drained for
maintenance so it made a c. 40 foot power dive into less than 6 inches of
water. Ouch. The body was apparently sucked out by the pumps...

The Great Blue Herons are still quite active, they're spending more time
around the heronry now, but still a lot of mass flyovers. Also, is anyone
seeing larger than normal flocks of Double-crested Cormorants? Ten is a
big number at the locks, but today there were at least one hundred with one
single flock of 65.

Cliff Drake
Ballard Seattle WA
cliff at cliffdrake.net