Sitting on the porcelain throne in my Everett bathroom one rainy Winter morning, I got to wondering if I'd seen all of Washington state's regularly occurring woodpeckers. Reaching over to the nearby shelf, I grabbed my ring-bound copy of "Birders Life List and Diary", which I've had since 1974 and checked it out. Turned out I'd seen everything in the state with a few exceptions. Still haven't seen them Klickitat Acorn Woodpeckers. And among the poor split and DNA probed (after 74) Sapsuckers, I still hadn't seen a Williamson's Sapsucker in Washington, or anywhere else. Or had I?



Months later, back on the throne on another day of crappy Winter weather, I was looking through one of my old journals.( Just something I do- reading old journal entry's to see what happened in years past at the particular time, or to remember past experiences of Summer, while it's Winter - a little escape. Sometime I read poetry - mostly short poems, because I'm a regular guy)



Anyway, I was reading an entry from one of my journals dated 19 August 1978. At the time I was doing 'stand exams' as a contractor for the United States Forest Circus. ('stand exam' being a euphemism for 'timber crusing'- collecting data for the Circus, on forest's they probably planned to sell out, regardless of facts, I'm afraid). That day of August, I spotted an unusual woodpecker in the middle of the untracked forest of Jack Creek, in the Teanaway drainage. I had my binocs , as always , but no bird book, so I took some field notes, which perfectly described a female Williamsons Sapsucker! For some funny reason (probably being dog-tired at the end of day) I didn't check out my bird book back at camp. But there it was in my journal- I had seen a Williamson's in Washington!



This is when my inner imp came out. "Hey", I thought, " I could sent a tweeters post titled "Williamson's Sapsucker found in Everett". But no, I realized, because I would soon be up to my binoculars in pissed off birders. This is where the 'media' headlines, like tweeters post's, can be so misleading. I guess I could've put it a number of ways, like:



1." Williamson's Sapsucker in Everett" ( truth rating: bad)

2. "Williamson's Sapsucker found in Everett Bathroom" ( truth rating: better)

3. "Everett Naturalist finds Williamson's Sapsucker While On Toilet Reading

Old Journal" ( truth rating: great! But nobody will believe it.).



Jeff Gibson

sitting in

Everett Wa