I'm somewhat of a social isolate (hermit), and never developed close friendships with other birders. Add to that me not being from around here in the first place, and I've made mistakes from time to time. My best birding years in the Whatcom County area were in the late 1980s. But back then I was not keeping county lists. So when the county listing game came along, I had to sort through my scribbled notes to figure out where I made this or that observation. One such instance was on a whale watching cruise around the San Juans (out of Bellingham). At first I attributed Surf Birds and other rock pipers as being on the Viti Rocks. But later adjusted that location as being at Bird Rocks in Skagit County. So now I still don't have Surf Birds, ettc., for Whatcom County. I don't even have the Black Oystercatcher for thhis county, since I no longer have a car and the local bus system irks me too much for outside of Bellingham proper. A couple of other species I have on my eBird county list I can't count on other official lists either (Mitered Parakeet on WWU campus once, and Ringed Turtle Dove outside my rear window).

Cheers!

Phil Hotlen
Bellingham, WA
----- Original Message -----
From: "Gary Bletsch" <garybletsch at yahoo.com>
To: "tweeters tweeters" <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Sent: Thursday, August 25, 2011 9:04:12 PM
Subject: [Tweeters] Viti Rocks

Dear Tweeters,

A birder up in Bellingham e-mailed me to say that Viti Rocks are in Whatcom, not Skagit. Birders here in Skagit have told me they were in Skagit, and I've always taken them at their word. Various maps show at least three very different curves to the county line in that area, two of which show the rocks being in Skagit.

However, Skagit County's own website has a map that shows the Viti Rocks being in Whatcom, so I reckon they really aren't in Skagit--despite what people here have been telling me for quite some time. DeLorme Atlas and Gazetteer is one of the places where the border is drawn wrong; the DeLorme map showing the incorrect border is on page 108.

The link to Skagit's map is:
http://www.skagitcounty.net/Gis/Applications/imap/asp/iMap.asp

Rats! I guess I had 14 shorebirds in Skagit, not sixteen, and so my all-time best Skagit shorebird day is still stuck at 14! However, visiting these rocks is really very nice, even if they end up being transferred to Garfield County or Timbuktu, and I will just console myself with having obtained some nice Whatcom ticks for the day!

Yours truly,

Gary

Gary Bletsch Near Lyman, Washington (Skagit County), USA garybletsch at yahoo.com Mentre che li occhi per la fronda verde
ficcava ?o s? come far suole
chi dietro a li uccellin sua vita perde, lo pi? che padre mi dicea: ?Figliuole,
vienne oramai, ch? ?l tempo che n?? imposto
pi? utilmente compartir si vuole?.
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