Wow, no doubt that's a record for martin posts on Tweeters in February.

Carol, I have a map produced by WDFW last year illustrating the
breeding locations contained in their database. I only have one copy
but would be glad to share it , just need to get to a Kinkos and
have copies made, its about 10 by 12, showing western Washington.
There are no site names on the map, but there would be in the data
that was used to produce it. I don't know about driving directions.

As far as knowing all locations of breeding martins in WA, a
process intended to determine that has been underway ever since
martins went onto the state candidate list back in the 1980's.
That's where the WDFW map came from. And it's an ongoing process.
Initially, following up on the work of Jack Davis, Dave Fehling,
and others, some nestbox placement and firsthand data collection
were done by WDFW, but in recent years its has become almost
entirely a volunteer effort, according to my understanding. Ive
been conducting partial surveys in several western WA counties since
the late 1990's, with the intention of doing a statewide survey and
status report for martins similar to the one Eric Horvath did for
Oregon in 1998. Other groups and individuals involved with martins
in WA (and many Tweets) have generously shared what they know.
Kevin was a primary cooperator in this effort because of his
knowledge of sites in and around King county. In addition to
providing nestsites for the birds, he also did counts on numbers of
breeding pairs at each of the sites over the years. I'm glad to
see so much interest in continuing his work, and hoping some of the
data gap resulting from his loss will now be filled by other
volunteers. It's a big project, since records and reports of
breeding martins exist for 21Washington counties. Anyone interested
in counting numbers of breeding pairs at any colony or colonies, not
only around the Sound, but along the Columbia River or on the
Pacific Coast, I would be really happy to hear from you.

Thais, I'm glad to hear of the ongoing interest in the Hylebos
colony. Based on site visits there in recent years, I've noticed a
reduction in pairs from those reported in the late 1990s. Has
anyone done counts there in the past few years ? Regarding Fort
Lewis, last summer Jim Lynch and I spent a day tramping around the
reservation, following up on recent reports of snag nesting birds,
and were pleased to find them at several reported sites, as well as
a couple others, simply by listening for martins in areas with
snags. Without any hard numbers to go on, it seems there has been a
decline at some of the nestbox sites around the fort. Over time,
predators can key in on long established breeding locations, and
after experiencing reproductive failure, surviving adults are
thought to relocate the following season. That may explain the
perceived expansion of the snag nesters. Funny how life goes
sometimes, who would have thought that the primary [known]
benefactor of snag nesting martins in WA would turn out to be the
military industrial complex.

Looking forward to spring.

Stan Kostka
lynnandstan at earthlink.net
N48 15.37 W122 06.50
near Arlington