Dear Tweeters,

I had an early-morning meeting in Seattle yesterday, so after my meeting I
headed north to Bellingham to see if the Tropical Kingbird was still
around. I arrived just after noon and was promptly rewarded with dazzling views
of the kingbird hawking insects from the chain-link fence across from
Whatcom Creek and behind the Construction Supply building on York St. I stayed
until about 1:00 PM, and the bird was still actively foraging.
Scope views of the bird from about 20 yards away revealed that it was
missing the "hook" on the tip of its upper bill. I don't know much about the
timing of feather molt in kingbirds, but this bird's two outer rectrices
were very worn, while all the other rectrices were new feathers as were the
primaries and secondaries. Perhaps that information could help age the bird?
In any regard it was a nice look at a classy bird!

On the way home,I stopped off at the "west 90" just outside of Edison.
There were more than a dozen N. Harriers gliding over the fields. A large
falcon caught my eye as it chased a Harrier. A gray-morph Gyrfalcon made
several passes over the meadow directly west of the "west 90" parking lot. It
was joined by a juv. Peregrine a few minutes later. The Gyrfalcon landed
several times on the ground, which made it difficult to relocate. Also
present were 5 Rough-legged Hawks. Along the Bayview Edison Road near the turn
to the "west 90" there is a large rain-water pond on the west side of the
road. There were thousands of Dunlin in the pond. A conservative estimate
would be 5-8 thousand Dunlin. They covered nearly half the surface of the
several-acre pond. Two other Peregrines were across the road from the
Dunlin flock.

On Fir Island, there were several thousand Snow Geese with one adult "Blue"
Goose right next to the road!

George Gerdts
Bainbridge Island, WA 98110
_geopandion at aol.com_ (mailto:geopandion at aol.com)
206-842-8138