Rachel and Tweeters,

It looks to me like the CLAY-COLORED SPARROW and SHORT-TAILED
SHEARWATER are both first records for Island County, based on Ken
and Laurie Knittle's "Birds in Washington State: a county comparison"
(2005 edition). Steve or anyone else-- are you away of any previous
county records for either species?

Rachel, congrats to you and your crew on a couple of great sightings!

Wayne C. Weber
Delta, BC
contopus at telus.net




----- Original Message -----
From: "Rachel Lawson" <RachelLawson at softhome.net>
To: <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Cc: "'s dang'" <birdingin at hotmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, November 15, 2005 8:40 PM
Subject: [Tweeters] Clay-colored Sparrow and Short-tailed Shearwater
onWhidbey Island


Hi everyone,

Today, Penny Koyama, Steve Dang, and I had a great day of birding on
Whidbey Island. The most notable birds were at Freeland Park, in
Freeland, at the end of Holmes Harbor. In the vegetation to the right
of the restrooms, we found one CLAY-COLORED SPARROW with a small flock
of GOLDEN-CROWNED and WHITE-CROWNED SPARROWS. Then, very bizarrely, we
saw two adult BALD EAGLES chasing one SHORT-TAILED SANDPIPER out over
the water. They flew back and forth several times, with the eagles only
a few feet behind the shearwater, until they went out of view behind the
buildings. The eagles came back and landed on the dock, but we couldn't
relocate the shearwater. Pretty weird!

Rachel Lawson
Seattle
rachellawson at softhome.net


_______________________________________________
Tweeters mailing list
Tweeters at u.washington.edu
http://mailman1.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/tweeters