Over here in the Okanogan there are plenty of magpies around...I haven't noticed any decline in numbers.? I think Benton and Franklin counties still may be checking dead birds for West Nile but I don't think Okanogan County is.
I still haven't seen any sign of Canada geese with their young that we usually have in our yard next to the river, so maybe that happened?during the 3 weeks we were on vacation.? I only saw the babies in the nest for 7 days and apparently robins fledge at 13 days.? So maybe that first week they were tucked down inside and I couldn't see them.? The robin that nested outside our patio door seemed to end up with at least one surviving fledgling, of three.? The first one was out of the nest for a few hours kind of wavering on a beam under the roof.? I saw it a bit later down on the deck.? I went around the side of the house to check up on it...I saw no sign of the wandering fledgling - and the neighbor's cat ran off.? It will be interesting to see if the mother robin nests back in that same nest again since she built it right outside our patio door while we were on vacation...I think robins may have more than one batch.
We also thought we may have seen a grackle around our yard, which would be?unusual here.? So we'll try to watch again this weekend and try to get a better ID.? It didn't really look like a Brewer's, color-wise and tail shape.
Heather Findlay
Okanogan WA