Wayne, et al

With the Acorn Woodpecker in Magnuson Park today, that makes an unprecedented number of records of both Lewis's and Acorn in western Washington in the past few weeks. I notice also that both species were just mentioned from western Oregon in the Oregon rare bird report on tweeters.

My guess is that this is a consequence of a failure of the acorn crop somewhere to the south of us, with birds dispersing well away from their normal haunts in search of winter sustenance. It would be very interesting to find out if anyone in the range of the Garry oak woodlands knows more about this.

Dennis

> Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2010 16:55:15 -0700
> From: "Wayne Weber" <contopus at telus.net>
> Subject: [Tweeters] Lewis's Woodpeckers near Deming, Whatcom Co.
> To: "TWEETERS" <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
>
> Tweeters,
>
> In case anyone was wondering about my cryptic reference to Lewis's
> Woodpeckers in Whatcom County, 2 of them were reported to be flycatching
> near a barn along Truck Road (just off the Mount Baker Highway east of
> Deming) by a person called Fanter Lane on September 24 (message to the
> Whatcom Birds group). I looked for the birds the next day, as did
> Bellingham birders Phil Wegener and Barry Ulman, but we could not find them.
> However, there were several raptors in the area including a TURKEY VULTURE,
> COOPER'S HAWK, RED-TAILED HAWK, and 2 BALD EAGLES.
>
> If we add these to other recent reports, there have been sightings in the
> last week of Lewis's Woodpeckers in Whatcom, Skagit, Snohomish, and King
> Counties, at least. There were also one or two seen in the Vancouver, BC
> area earlier in September.
>
> Wayne C. Weber
> Delta, BC
> contopus at telus.net

-----
Dennis Paulson
1724 NE 98 St.
Seattle, WA 98115
206-528-1382
dennispaulson at comcast.net



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