Hi, Tweets

My thanks for all the reports and apologies to
those I didn't respond to after receiving their
reports. It's been a busy month. Turkey vultures
continue to do well and are showing themselves in
a lot of new places. Global warming may be
sending them farther and farther north. Doesn't
seem too unusual since they are now in the
Maritime East and are even found up in Ontario in
the winter, long after one would think they would
be gone. When I once asked a colleague in Ontario
what in the world turkey vultures were doing up
there when it was pretty icy, he replied "We have
lots of dead stuff up here!" Anyway, it's good to
see them doing well. Following is the turkey
vulture report for May, 2006, for Washington, British Columbia, and Oregon:

01 ? 1 near Roy
02 ? 2 at Nisqually NWR; 2 soaring over Dugualla
Lake; 1 over Best Road on the Skagit Flats; 5
soaring near the dump between Ocean Shores and Hoquiam
03 ? 1 high over Marymoor Park, Redmond; 1 low
overhead about 2.5 miles southwest of Littlerock
05 ? 2 at Damon Point; 10 along Brady Loop Road;
1 soaring over Lake Lenore; 1 near North Bend; 5
in a nice kettle near Roslyn; 30 over Lummi Island during the day
06 ? 2 circling east of Issaquah; 1 near
Foulweather Bluff; 1 over Glacial Heritage
Preserve; 16 at Pitt Meadows, B.C.; 30 at the Brady loop
07 ? (?) along the Snoqualmie River; 2 along the
Foothills Trail, Pierce County; 5 flying over the
Mud Mountain entrance; 5 east of Enumclaw; 1 over
Gooseberry Point headed north; 1 over the mouth
of the Nooksack; 1 at the Maplewood Conservation
Area in North Vancouver, B.C.; 1 eating a coyote
on Dodson Road; 5 at the Hood Canal Bridge
08 ? 20 +/- rising out of trees north of
Wilkeson; (?) in Roy; 1 at the Hood Canal Bridge;
1 soaring between Carnation and Duvall
09 ? 1 at the Reifel Sanctuary, B.C.
10 ? 2 adults soaring over Lake Chelan
11 ? 4 over the Chilliwack River Valley, B.C.; 2
soaring over Scatter Creek south of Olympia
12 ? 3 at the Nisqually NWR; I-90 mile posts: 1
at 72, 1 at 80, 2 at 85, and 3 at 86; 6 at Langley, B.C.
13 ? 1 north of Sequim; 1 adult perched on a
guard rail seemingly as tame as a pet chicken near White Salmon
14 ? 2 at Nisqually NWR; (?) at the Englishman
River Estuary, Parksville, B.C.; 10 with a bald
eagle on a carcass at Pitt Meadows, B.C.; 8 in a
field west of Rannee Road, B.C.; 2 at Toppenish
NWR; 1 at Cypress Provincial Park, B.C.; 3 on the
Squamish Estuary, B.C. monthly bird count
15 ? 1 over Thompson Road, Pitt Meadows, B.C.;
several east of Enumclaw; 8 at Westport; 10 at
the Tokeland Marina; 7 along the Brady Loop Road
16 ? 7 in the Eagleridge area of West Vancouver,
B.C.; 1 soaring near the Swinomish Channel
17 ? 2 over Lougheed Hwy, Pitt Meadows, B.C.; 1
over the Kent Ponds; 1 soaring over lower Griffin
Creek; 1 soaring over Loop Lake
22 ? 1 at Grant Narrows Regional Park, B.C.
23 ? on a trip from Washington to Malheur in
Oregon, turkey vultures were seen every day
24 ? 2 adults sixty miles north of Fort St.
James, B.C. (perhaps the fartherest north reported in B.C.)
27 ? on the Clallam County Birdathon a record 93
turkey vultures:1 at La Push, 20 between Clallam
Bay and Cape Flattery, 21 in the Joyce-Elwha-Port
Angeles areas, 4 in the Olympic Mountains, 45 in
the Sequim-Dungeness area, and 2 on the Miller
Peninsula (last year?s number was 91)
28 ? 15+ near Coulee City-Electric City; (?) Beck
Creek-Chase River Estuary, B.C.; 1 feeding on a
road-killed doe near Bremerton; 1 circling over
Hwy 3, mp 8.5 and another at mp 6.; 1 sharing a
dead raccoon with a crested caracara north of Oakville
29 ? 5 at Roy; 6 near the Cathlamet
30 ? 14 with two eagles soaring over fields near Monroe

Note: a (?) means no number was given.

Your reports are very much appreciated and
continue to give a good picture of our only Northwest vulture species.

Cheers, Diann

Diann MacRae
Olympic Vulture Study
22622 - 53rd Avenue S.E.
Bothell, WA 98021
tvulture at vei.net