Hello Hal and Tweeters,

Notification of the bill to change the state bird came to me through the WSACC ( WA State Audubon Conservation Committee) email list and since I live in Ross Hunter's district (48th) I emailed him to ask what was going on. He wrote back and said that a 12-year-old constituent asked him to file a bill, so he did. He said he does not expect the bill to get a hearing.

Andy McCormick
Bellevue, WA

On February 10, Hall Opperman wrote:

Couldn't agree more, Wayne.

As for the current occupant, American Goldfinch: it is also the state bird of Iowa and New Jersey. Nice for the kumabya effect, maybe, but hardly particular to our region.

BC made a superb choice for its provincial bird, through an ideal, participative process. Could Tweeters provide a forum for a similar initiative in our state? Any interest out there?

Ross Hunter is my state representative -- in fact, he lives in my neighborhood. I'm willing to get in touch with him and ask what's going on with the Great Blue Heron bill he's sponsoring, and see if he and his co-sponsors are open to putting a hold on it while a Tweeters-initiated campaign plays out. If there is sufficient interest in Tweeterdom, that is.

If I had an opportunity to propose a new state bird candidate it would be Black Swift, found on both sides of the Cascades (a prerequisite, I would think, for a Washington state bird). Black Swift is widely if disjunctly distributed in western North America, Mexico, and the West Indies, but its North American center of abundance is Washington and British Columbia. This is a very cool species, somewhat mysterious and always a thrill to see. It is also a species of conservation concern, without the disadvantage of having become a political lightning rod like the Spotted Owl or the Marbled Murrelet. At least not yet. If its rugged, remote nesting habitat requirements have kept Black Swift out of the way of conflict with the economic interests of the wood-products industry, the gathering impact of climate change may well prove to be a different story.

Please direct thoughts on any of this not to me personally but to this list as a whole so we can see if enough of a discussion gets started to be worth continuing.

Hal Opperman
Medina, Washington
hal at catharus.net