I can mirror many of the changes that Dennis Paulson notes--I've lived for 19 years a few miles away in Seattle's Bryant neighborhood. I've kept a year list the last 3 years and can count on 35 or so species for the year. Some I'm unlikely to see again, like the stunned MacGillivrary's Warbler on my windowsill one morning, or the Pileated Woodpecker briefly on the suet (what! in my yard!). House Sparrows, once the bane, are nearly gone. Golden-crowned Kinglets have been singing regularly the last few weeks, which is new. I woke to a Pacific-Slope Flycatcher song, just one verse, the other day. Never before, never since. The dawn chorus used to be wall to wall Robins, now there's almost none (I blame the crows that nest next door). All spring I woke only to some distant House Finch songs and the constant crow caws, which made me very sad to recognize how sparse the bird life is getting around here.

Doug Plummer
Seattle



Doug Plummer | Still & Motion
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