Went out this morning before class to see if I could find the Lapland Longspur at the Union Bay Natural Area (aka Montlake Fill for those who haven't upgraded yet, lol). I did not find the LALO. What I did find was a Northern Harrier on a small pile of feathers on the south side of the main trail, about 15 feet from where I first saw the LALO Saturday. I tried to find the head of the meal-bird, but all I found was feathers - dark at the base and very light beige/yellow on the tips; most all body feathers; some very tiny feathers that were very rufous colored (small enough to be head feathers or from the secondaries on the wing or something like that).

Anyway, if someone does see the Lapland Longspur at UBNA in the next few days, please do post it. I am not good enough with feathers to know if this meal-bird was what was left of it or not, but it would be nice to try to know.

Also, I heard a Varied Thrush this morning, singing in the area east of the Center for Urban Horticulture. There was also a Cooper's Hawk and a very dark (juvenile) Red-tailed Hawk (in addition to the earlier Northern Harrier) amongst the 45 total species seen (and yes, I saw every bird I ID'd this time, not just heard..) there this morning. I even saw a family of 4 raccoons on the little western-most pond today.

Brett A. Wolfe
Seattle, WA
m_lincolnii at yahoo.com


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