Hi, Tweets
After a great summer we're about to lose many of our summer visitors. I thought perhaps I'd add a few statistics from the past to lure birder's eyes upward more often from the neat and unusual shorebirds and passerines that have been with us. Vultures are also pretty neat birds. I've listed a few past Tweeters reports below:
75 over Deception Pass
600 over Rocky Point, B.C. (heading south!!)
200 over Mima Mounds
61 over Beacon Hill, Seattle
172 over Foothills Trail
27 kettling over Toppenish
50 west of Cle Elum
and . . . 878 at Salt Creek County Park
These are all one-day sightings and all in the month of September.
Following is the August report for Washington and Oregon:
01 ? 8-9 over a field being disked near Hwy.23/I-5; 1 east of Corvallis; 1 south of Albany, all in Oregon
02 ? 1 east of Newport, Oregon
03 ? 3 over Hatfield Lake; 3 quartering the marsh near the dikes
04 ? 3 at the Marblemount Fish Hatchery
05 ? 9 at the Cascade River next to the fish hatchery (no, the vultures don't snatch fish, the river otters do and then the vultures get the carcass); 1 soaring over Whiskey Ridge in Marysville
07 ? 5 at Fern Ridge, Oregon; 1 over Stanwood
10 ? 6 at the BirdsEye-Redmond Sewage Ponds, Oregon; 8 at New Lake, Coos and birds at New River and south of Coos Bay, Hwy. 101, Oregon
11 ? 2 at Conboy Lake NWR; 3 from rafting on the upper Skagit; a ?kettle? at Marblemount
14 ? 2 over northwest Portland; 5 from Springfield, Oregon
16 ? 2 at the Tillamook Bay wetlands, Oregon
21 ? 10 at Hatfield and Redmond Ponds, Oregon
24 ? 6 over Camas
26 ? 2 soaring along Hwy.105
27 ? 8 over the Redmond Sewage Ponds, Oregon
28 ? 12 at the Armitage County Park on the McKenzie River, Oregon
31 ? 6 over Sturgeon Lake, Sauvie Island, Oregon
"several" over Maple Falls all month
With this continuing good weather it should be an excellent vulture migration. Late September and early October usually have the highest counts. I hope more reports come in from Washington this month.
Thanks for all the great reports.
Cheers, Diann

Diann MacRae
Olympic Vulture Study
22622 - 53rd Avenue S.E.
Bothell, WA 98021
tvulture at gmx.com