Like many tweeters I have been greatly enjoying
this banner year for Snowy Owls south of the
border. Beautiful visit to Ocean Shores yesterday
with a number of well lit Snowies on Damon Point
and an early visit to Stanwood to the owls there.
I hope to see many more over the next
weeks/months. All of this takes me back to I
believe 1974 (may be off by a year). I had moved
to Seattle the year earlier and was a practicing
attorney (no longer an attorney) with a law firm
that had strong ties to Senator Warren G.
Magnuson. I also had a strong interest in birding
and long before tweeters, followed every lead and
often the Birdfinding in Washington book by Terry
Wahl and Dennis Paulsen finding birds all over the
State. Recognizing that was a long time ago, I am
often struck by how much times have changed and
our birds as well. With MANY more birders out in
the field and many more opportunities to share
sightings, it seems like there are many more
rarities now than then - but again that may just
be more eyes and more mouths reporting. I also
sense however that some of the places that were
sure bets to see certain birds back then have
become far less reliable (if at all) not. And of
course there were no Eurasian Collared doves
everywhere in the '70's.

But the point of all of this is that 1974 (again
may be off by a year) was an irruption year for
Snowy Owls and they were EVERYWHERE - downtown
Seattle included and were especially (to me) a
wonderful opportunity at what was then Sand Point
Naval Air Station. It was possible to get access
to the area in a couple of ways and I was
fortunate to be able to do so on several occasions
- just in time for numerous Snowy Owl
intersections. It was these owls that really got
me interested in Sand Point and eventually led to
me chairing the Friends of Sand Point Park, a
community action/political group that fought off
the exclusive interests of private aviation and
helped get the NAS surplussed to the City of
Seattle for park purposes. Magnuson of course was
the key to the deal and the park is rightly named
after this great friend and benefactor of the
State of Washington. Friends jokingly alluded to
my "Snowy Owl constituency" as I got more and more
heavily involved in the campaign.

My best recall is that there were as many as 4 or
5 Snowy Owls at Sand Point/Magnuson that year and
I know there was at least one that I saw at the
Montlake Fill as well. Being new to the area (I
came to Seattle in the summer of 1973), I thought
that the owls were to be expected every year.
Well - of course that was not the case. I also
expected that Short Eared Owls were part of the
ongoing local scene as I saw them both at Sand
Point and the Fill and indeed even found a Short
Eared's wing at Sand Point - apparently the victim
of one of the Snowies. Wrong again.

Anyhow, that was a very long time ago and I am
hoping that somehow a Snowy shows up at either
Magnuson or the Fill this year. Now that would be
great deja vu.