What a surprise and treat to add a new bird to my yard list of 13 years at
this residence. BARRED OWL! It was around and calling for a solid three
hours between 7:30 and 10:30pm last night up the Doug Fir treetops somewhere. It
was a perfectly quiet, clear, cold, and crisp starry night as it belted out
the familiar "who, who, who-are-you", and seemingly calling to greet the
bright full moon. We conversed off and on back and forth at times. I was
surprised that it stayed put for so long and continuously called faithfully through
that entire three hour period at about 45 second intervals. So, an official
#79 for the Eastgate homestead, and first new bird since that strange out of
place little covey of 4-5 female California Quail came to visit and hold up
in my yard during the winter, 2004. After 10:30pm, it went silent or moved
on and there were no sign nor sound upon my early morning rising around
4:30am. The Barred Owl brings the yard owl species total to four now after Great
Horned, Barn, and Western Screech, the latter only in 1993 when I first moved
in here.

Earlier in the year, Jan. 4 to be precise, excitedly I thought I had added
Mountain Chickadee. I had a great but brief look but looking slightly up at
it perched on the fence, after which it disappeared. I couldn't quite bring
myself to calling it official since it didn't repeat, and the look was for
only a couple seconds, and I really needed a better look at that one. About
three weeks later, this same chickadee reappeared and started visiting the
feeder with the usual roaming flock of Black-capped and Chestnut-backeds, but was
always very very skittish. I sensed something wasn't right about it but my
glimpses were always fleeting and every view has been strangely brief. But
finally, one was enough that the bird in question was determined to be an
aberrant Black-capped possessing a mottled whitish crown, bordered by a thin strip
of black around the crown, and a thin white line (supersilium) over the eye,
thus giving the perfect appearance of a Mountain Chickadee when viewed at an
angle a few feet below eye level with the crown not visible. To this day,
that bird remains a very elusive, seemingly almost embarrassed or self
conscious with it's unfortunate deviant aberration.

So, as I was happily and dutifully entering the BARRED OWL into my home yard
list computer data base, another 'new' sound began permeating the house from
outside; a Coyote of all things was howling to the moon from down in the
lower part of the yard. I have seen Coyotes on rare occasions roaming through
the neighborhood (Black Bear too about 8 years ago and the occasional deer,
not to mention the epidemic of Aplodontia), but had never heard one around here
until last night. New yard birds around here have become very far and few
between. My only chance for adding much of anything else might be during
Spring and Fall migration which unfortunately for both periods I am usually away
on field research assignments. In the meantime, I am still waiting for that
Siberian Accentor to show up and I'll let you know when it does, ...but for
now, I'm still waiting, and so must you :-))

Richard Rowlett
Bellevue (Eastgate), WA