Hi folks - Don Norman asked that I post this to the list. Neat!! The
Breeding Bird Surveys are a great way to go "birding with a purpose", and I
recommend that anyone who can should check in to getting a route. "My"
route is the 'Keystone' route - over north and east of Ritzville. A great
way to put your birding skills to a positive purpose.
Jon. Anderson
Olympia, Washington
festuca at olywa.net

Here's Don's note:
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> In the interest of promoting the value of the Breeding Bird Survey, I've
enclosed some tidbits of my 2 surveys done over the past several days.
There are dozens of BBS routes available in WA state. The BBS surveys
provide critical trend data for many species of birds in North America.
Knowing every bird is not critical, just the regular species, along with a
committment to run the route annually. For more info on routes that are
available, contact Ed at anna99352 at yahoo.com, and for more info on the BBS,
go to mp2-pwrc.usgs.gov/bbs. I still have trouble downloading the maps of
the routes, ask Ed for their locations if your are interested. Most of the
routes are in out of the way places but some were real close to urban areas.
don norman

> I performed 89-009, the Taholah route on the outer coast (for the 11th
time) on Friday with a starting temperature higher than most of my finishing
temperatures, an estimated 58F and a finishing temp of 80F. The water was
so still it was tempting to want to linger and look at the flocks of scoters
and murres and other stuff offshore (and outside my count area) - I did
record a few scoters in close, a pelagic cormorant, and caspian terns, all
sporatically recorded. I thought the extremely still weather would result
in a higher level of rufous hummers, as I am usually annoyed by the dearth
because of the wind and noise levels - but I did not see any more than
ususal. Singing was way down because of the heat, but I could hear more
clearly than ususal, so numbers were not as low as some typical nasty rainy
windy days that are on the cusp of not being acceptable census days. I
cannot tell you how many times I have had to repeat the survey! I did
observe a group of young great horned owls, heard a blue grouse at its
regular stop, but did not record a single willow flycatcher as the clearcut
areas continue to grow.

> On the way back from the count, stopped at Damon Point at Ocean Shores and
spotted a likely incubating female Snowy Plover on the east side of the road
in a small patch of Salicornia in the gravelly area only about 40 yards from
the road. There were a few dunlin and semi plovers and a sanderling on the
mudflats. The fog was blessedly coming in limiting views as we cooled off.

> Today I performed the Lakewood to Fort Lewis route (89-910), a BBS route I
set up when I was working on the McChord AFB TNC project, to ensure a BBS
route existed that had good coverage of Garry oak, prairie, and ponderosa
pine habitat on the west side. Unlike Friday, the day stayed cloudy till I
was finished, and it was a nice morning. Noteable birds included a scrub
jay and gray jay (but no stellers!), 8 hermit warblers on 6 stops (3x
normal) and singles of bullock's oriole, horned lark (singing on the13th
division prairie), pileated (only the 2nd time in 17 surveys), and a
cooper's hawk (2nd record). There were 22 pewees on 21 stops, an amazing #
of stops and 2x the average. The 68 species observed is right on the
average number, ranging between 62 and 72 (surveys are performed not just at
the early June window, but also in early May and late June to parallel the
May 1 to July 1 window of point count surveys performed at McChord). My all
time total of 99 species seen in the 17 counts still stands! I'm already
looking forward to next year!! don
>