Dear Birders,
Having recently joined the group, I have been eavesdropping for the last week and from what I read, you live in a birding paradise! My wife and I are shortly spending a holiday in the Seattle/Mt Rainier/Long Beach areas. I would be grateful to know whether there are any parks in Seattle downtown where we can walk and do some birding. We are staying on the north east side of the Seattle Center. My second question is whether in early/mid July there will be much bird song still - over here it is diminishing. Although not a birding holiday I am looking forward to adding some species to my 'North American' list!
We live in a small town (Wilmslow) in the county of Cheshire, about 12 miles south of Manchester City centre, UK. We are on the edge of the country and are lucky we have a number of different walks. The birding is modest locally but we are within easy reach of the coast, forest, moorland etc. We feed the birds in our garden, which is small but gives plenty of cover and we have a pond. It is now standard practice to feed throughout the breeding season (once upon a time it was only in the winter months) and the last few weeks have seen a wonderful increase in the numbers of young birds visiting - by your standards our average number of garden species per week is low, currently around 16 or 17.
With best wishes John Hillmer
j.hillmer at virgin.net