Hi, Tweeters,

Bill and I were out for our fourth unsuccessful attempt to find
the Northern Shrike at the Montlake Fill this morning. Although we failed
to find the shrike, we enjoyed looking around, as always. There were
several hundred Ring-necked Ducks in Lake Washington between the Fill and
Laurelhurst. These mingled with many Coots and a few Mallards and American
Wigeons. As we were gazing at Mud Island hoping to spot the shrike, Bill
noticed that a Red-tailed Hawk had dropped down into the reeds clear over by
the road that runs along the edge of the UW playing fields. We hustled over
that way and peered at the hawk from the muddy point that overlooks the
lagoon. Bill set up his scope and took several pictures of the Red Tail as
it dispatched its prey. Even though this was all happening quite far away,
he got some good (well, interesting) shots of the hawk as it actually killed
the poor duck. If you don't mind seeing such stuff, Bill put three of these
pictures on his Flickr site http://www.flickr.com/photos/29258421 at N07/ .

About the duck: it's a little hard to see what duck it is.
Uniformly dark head and dark bill. I'm guessing Gadwall since there were
Gadwalls about and I can't imagine what else it would be. If I'm wrong,
please don't hesitate to correct me!

There were about a zillion crows swirling around over the hawk
as it tried to enjoy its kill, but finally the hawk abandoned the duck and
flew over into the snag right next to us, where the crows continued to
pester the hawk. We wondered if the hawk was hoping the crows might finally
leave it alone so it could sneak back over there and eat the duck.

We appreciate all the reports about the rare and fairly rare
birds that people are seeing around Western Washington. We're still hoping
to get down to Tacoma to try to find the Black-tailed Gull.



Charlotte Byers, Seattle