Would any of you, or your acquaintances like to live in a luxury bird blind
on ~1/2 acre on a greenbelt 15 minutes from downtown Seattle?

I got an e-mail from another tweeters subscriber the other day indicating
that she was jealous that Dennis Paulson had Barred Owls and Varied thrushes
in his backyard. You could have a yard and woods with 3 owl species, 3
thrush species and a total of 77 native bird species recorded in the last 5
years and many more surely unrecorded. (See bird list below)

You could also help a local naturalist who provided some of Seattle's best
and most diverse nature program offerings before these programs and her
career were destroyed by Seattle government officials abusing their power.
She is now forced to sell her house and is moving to Maine where her
favorite fauna and flora live and where it snows. You also may be able to
prevent the largely wooded ~1/2 acre from being subdivided.

Some of you may have heard the story of the Director of Camp Long Nature
Center, Lynn Havsall, who the Parks Department had arrested, roughly treated
(injured) and jailed for attempting to watch owls in the park while it was
open. (The charge was dropped just before the arraignment and the
prosecutor said you can't trespass in a public park when it's open.) She
was then fired on a host of amazing charges. These included that an
employee under her supervision pulled a weed from a gravel bed in another
park without permission, and that she used "lack of discretion and poor
judgment in her decision to call the police" the second time she was
assaulted (this time injured) by her assistant. (The assistant's
millionaire dad was best friends with two top managers.) The assistant was
given her job as a favor to her dad. She was angry that the popular nature
programs that Lynn initiated made what had originally been a slacker front
desk job, at a virtually dead facility, too busy for her. (The parks dept
has since eliminated most of the REVENUE GENERATING nature programs that
Lynn initiated at Camp Long. The city and taxpayers now lose an estimated
$60,000 in rental and program revenue while getting an extimated 10% of use
of the facility and progams by the public.)

The master bedroom, kitchen, family room and den look out into her private,
secluded woods where from her window she sees and hears young Screech Owls
calling to their parents for food, sees and hears Great Horned Owls hooting
and Barred Owls look in through the picture window of her extra large chef's
kitchen asking "Who cooks for you, who cooks for you-u". Through the trees
in winter the view is of an extensive hillside of park and greenbelt and a
little peek at the Cascades that make it hard to believe you're in the city.
Osprey regularly fly over and fledged family groups are heard whistling and
seen playfully dive-bombing each other in late summer. Eagles also
regularly fly over. Thanks to Kevin Li's work, Purple Martins from a now
healthy colony along the Duwamish and Elliot Bay are seen and heard
throughout the summer feeding above. In addition to the 77 native bird
species, her list of sightings (or "hearings") from her property includes
Flying Squirrel, Coyote, Red Fox, Raccoon, Opossum, Garter Snake, Ensatina
(salamander) and Pseudoscorpions, several butterfly species and more.

Interest rates are apparently the lowest in 40 years and the house and
property are only $275,500. Call Lynn at 206 768-9956 to see it. The first
ad will appear in the morning (Sunday) paper, so call soon if you're
interested.

The bird list from the property:

Canada Goose
Mallard
California Quail
Double-crested Cormorant
Great Blue Heron
Turkey Vulture
Osprey
Bald Eagle
Sharp-shinned Hawk
Cooper?s Hawk
Red-tailed Hawk
American Kestrel
Merlin
Peregrine Falcon
Killdeer
Glaucous-winged Gull
Caspian Tern
Band-tailed Pigeon
Mourning Dove
Western Screech-Owl
Great Horned Owl
Barred Owl
Common Nighthawk
Vaux?s Swift
Anna?s Hummingbird
Rufous Hummingbird
Belted Kingfisher
Red-breasted Sapsucker
Downy Woodpecker
Northern Flicker
Pileated Woodpecker
Olive-sided Flycatcher
Empidonax sp.
Hutton?s Vireo
Warbling Vireo
Steller?s Jay
American Crow
Purple Martin
Violet-green Swallow
Barn Swallow
Black-capped Chickadee
Chestnut-backed Chickadee
Bushtit
Red-breasted Nuthatch
Brown Creeper
Bewick?s Wren
Winter Wren
Golden-crowned Kinglet
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Swainson?s Thrush
Hermit Thrush
American Robin
Varied Thrush
Cedar Waxwing
Orange-crowned Warbler
Yellow Warbler
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Black-throated Gray Warbler
Townsend?s Warbler
Wilson?s Warbler
Western Tanager
Spotted Towhee
Chipping Sparrow
Fox Sparrow
Song Sparrow
White-throated Sparrow
White-crowned Sparrow
Golden-crowned Sparrow
Dark-eyed Junco
Black-headed Grosbeak
Brown-headed Cowbird
Baltimore Oriole
Purple Finch
House Finch
Pine Siskin
American Goldfinch
Evening Grosbeak
______________

77 total native species

This list was compiled with only casual birding by someone who was home
little of the time and has a lot of room for growth. Little effort was made
to spot and identify waterfowl that flew over on the way to the Sound, the
Duwamish River or Lake Washington.


Thank you
Stewart Wechsler
West Seattle
mailto:ecostewart at quidnunc.net