With permission from Mike Hamilton, who both saw and photographed a
Northern Mockingbird at the Skagit Game Range on Monday, I am sharing
with you, a couple of personal accounts from that day and from the
past that make his find even more memorable than for it's rarity
around here - these are excerpts from a couple of reports (including 3
photographs of the mockingbird) that Mike sent out to the folks on his
list - I can send you copies of the photographs if you are interested.

---------------from Mike:

On another lark (as in whim, not bird) I went to the Skagit delta
today. I went to the Hayton Reserve on Fir Island Road and to the
Wiley Slough Reserve, visiting each twice. I will start with the
latter because it is where today?s star was (#1). I thought my eyes
deceived me, but I should have known better. They woke me up enough
times as a kid down in Texas. I didn?t believe it till I got back to
my car and the bird book. A northern mockingbird. According to the
books I checked, this guy is somewhere between uncommon and rare up
here in the Pacific Northwest.

------------

Betta [wife] and I went to the Wiley Slough Reserve about 15 years
ago. We were not really birders, just folks who enjoyed a walk in the
woods now and then. Prompted by the annual article in the Seattle
Times, we went there to see snow geese. We had never seen any and
still hadn?t by the end of the day. A little disappointing. Now, I
know they were probably no more than a few miles away but we were
clueless as to where to go. But, we had a nice walk on a pretty fall
day in the area of the slough. We saw a few small birds, which didn?t
really mean much to us. We were looking for big game.....the snow
geese. As I walked the same trail yesterday, the irony was not lost
on me that I saw one of the few birds that we two southerners most
likely would have recognized. We wouldn?t have thought much about it,
but just thought.....?Huh! A mockingbird, I guess they do have them
here?. And with that, here are a couple of more views of him.

- - - - - - - - - - -

I imagine some of the rest of you have some history with mockingbirds
as well...

Barb Deihl

N. Matthews Beach - NE Seattle

barbdeihl at comcast.net

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