I completed my midwinter waterfowl surveys in Thurston and Pierce counties last week. The lakes I surveyed included Capitol
Lake, Pattison Lake, Long Lake, Hicks Lake, Black Lake, Scott Lake, Deep Lake, Clear Lake, Kapowsin Lake, Ohop Lake,
Silver Lake, and Kreger Lake.

I have been surveying most of these lakes every year since 1998 and Capitol Lake was the only one that stood out, in my mind,
as having depressed numbers and species diversity, relative to past years. However, having said that, others have been
saying that waterfowl numbers south of the Skagit have been generally lower than usual so it's possible I need to get out
my Chi square testing kit and see if there's statistical significance to any of the changes I'm perceiving.

Kelly McAllister
Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife
Olympia, Washington
Reply to: mcallkrm at dfw.wa.gov

On Tue, 11 Jan 2005, Guttman, Burt wrote:

> Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2005 14:31:04 -0800
> From: "Guttman, Burt" <GuttmanB at evergreen.edu>
> To: tweeters at u.washington.edu
> Subject: [Tweeters] Olympia ducks
>
> At the risk of offending people who take great pride in the glories of Capitol Lake in Olympia :-), I want to report that Saturday's bird walk revealed the greatly reduced numbers of all birds that I mentioned about a month ago, but at least we had a trifle more variety. We had two pair of Canvasbacks at the extreme south end of the lake and a few Common Goldeneyes, and there was a small group of Ring-necks farther north a day or two before. I still would like some explanation for the numbers; Kelly McAllister's note about the use of herbicide in the lake may be telling, and someone also mentioned that there had been a drought in the American prairie areas, the Dakotas; but was there also a drought in the extensive northern areas from Alaska through the Canadian prairies where so many of these ducks breed?
>
> (BTW, Evergreen e-mail has been down for several days, and if anyone tried to send me anything important over the weekend, please send it again.)
>
> As a happier note, here on Long Lake outside Lacey we were treated to about two dozen glorious male Common Mergansers yesterday, as well as a number of females. A wonderful sight! That's the kind of aesthetic experience that makes birding important to me. Yeah, I went over and got a great look at the Redwing one day, but . . . well, I won't try to pit one experience against the other, but I sure do love sitting here and enjoying those mergansers.
>
> Burt Guttman
> The Evergreen State College
> Olympia, WA 98505 guttmanb at evergreen.edu
> Home: 7334 Holmes Island Road S. E., Olympia, 98503
>
>
>