Dear Tweeters,

Below is a message I received about the Olympia redwing from Ryan O'Donnell.

Greg Pelletier

Olympia, WA



_____

From: Ryan O' Donnell
Sent: Tuesday, December 28, 2004 11:40 AM
To: pondhawk at hotmail.com
Subject: Redwing this morning



Dear Greg:



I saw on the Tweeters discussion board that there was a request by Gene
Revelas to post more information on the redwing in Olympia. I am not a
member of the list, so I sent him an email asking if he would post my
observations from this morning for me. That email was returned to me.
Would you mind forwarding the below message to the list?




I arrived at the site on Decatur street between 4th and 5th just after
8:00AM. There were about 20 people there at the time, and they reported
that the redwing had just been out on a branch but had retreated into the
thick holly. There were also many American Robins in the tree. We watched
for quite a while, checking out every robin that flew out of the tree and
many Oregon juncoes. I also saw rock doves, glaucous-winged gulls, crows,
European starlings, scrub jays, and a flock of four unidentified cormorants
while waiting for the redwing. Finally, around 8:45, someone spotted the
bird at the edge of the holly. I got a pretty good look before it hopped
back into the holly, but a lot of people didnt have time to spot it. A few
minutes later it hopped out onto a bare deciduous tree for maybe a minute,
then back into an apple tree, and finally back to the deciduous tree where
it sat in plain view for all to admire for about 3-5 minutes. I got great
looks through my binoculars and someone's spotting scope. (Thank you to all
those that shared their optics.) Right around 9:00 it took off and made a
big circle around us, probably about 50 feet in the air. I thought it was
going to leave, but it completed the circle and landed back in the holly out
of view. At this point I had to leave, but the bird was still somewhere
there in the holly. There were about 40 people there by the time I left.



Thanks,
Ryan O'Donnell
Olympia, WA
Tsirtalis (at)hotmail.com