Hi All,
At 11 this morning Delia?s and my bad luck vis-?-vis Red Shouldered Hawks in this state ran out. Undoubtedly the only reason was that a juvenile male Harrier was persistently harassing a big young Peregrine over the MacAleister Creek trail. A Red Shouldered that was maybe using a thermal there kept using it perhaps to get above the fracas. This bird never flapped a wing but quickly gained a 3-400 ft. height advantage over the Peregrine, and then drifted toward the Nisqually River. The wing window crescents got lit up brightly as the bird passed under the sun, contrasting nicely with the black primary tips and the bold tail banding on the relatively long tail was seen.
I always appreciate it when others post their entire lists of what they saw, but nonetheless I?ll just add these additional notes: There was a wonderfully large presence of Purple Finch all over the refuge, chowing down on fruit. The swallows still there seemed to be all or mostly Barn and Violet Green?that?s all we could identify, anyway, along with a few Vaux?s Swifts. There were several Wigeon kills by raptors and one possible old goose kill by a raptor. We didn?t see any sandpipers, and even though the WDFW thinks there?s enough Band Tailed Pigeons for a hunting season, we never see them at the Nisqually any more.

-Ed Newbold, Beacon Hill Seattle newboldwildlife at netscape.net



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