I am posting from Everett Washington; Cosmopolitan City.

Now this is not mindless boosterism, such as various cities claiming to be "world class" (whose world? what class?). I'm referring to our town as being host to several of the worlds few cosmopolitan birds.The Eastern and Western hemispheres have their North/South migrants. There are a number of circumboreal birds. But there are very few bird species found on all four quarters of the globe. Several of these Cosmopolitans are currently making a big splash here in Everett.

First of all is the Caspian Tern, which as David Hutchinson pointed out the other day is a Cosmopolitan. What a great bird! On Thursday night I was driving down to the Anchor Pub just after the sun set, the sky over the current nesting colony on the warehouse roof was all up in the air screaming around in front of the beautiful Puget Sound background. A spectacular sight and sound experience. Caspian's are fun to watch diving like arrows into the bay and coming up with small fish. I'm always impressed with their aerodynamics as they make fast flight look so easy.

Everett's other splashy Cosmopolitan is the Osprey. Everett has what has been called the "largest maritime Osprey colony on the West coast".. There are around 26 or so nests around the Snohomish river mouth, many easily visible on the North Everett waterfront. They can be quite gregarious- I've seen up to 10 circling together over the shoreline bluffs. Right now the young are fledging, or about to, so soon there's gonna be even more Ospreys around!

Peregrine Falcons are also Cosmopolitans, and I did see one make a splash a while back as it dove on a waterbird. While not exactly common, I do see Peregrines on a regular basis around here.

Lurking out in the dark somewhere we also have Barn Owls, another Cosmo, and over the years I've seen several Great Egrets, another Cosmopolitan, in the valley just out of town. And of course we have Rock Pigeons and House Sparrows - in the category of
"human assisted" cosmopolitans.


Jeff Gibson
in Cosmopolitan,
Everett Wa