Chukar, Bobwhite and Rio Grande Wild Turkey chicks are readily available at many farm supply stores. People buy them for pets or for their kids to raise and they get set free after they tire of them. Wilson Cady
Columbia River Gorge, WA

---------- Original Message ----------
From: David Hutchinson <flora.fauna at live.com>
To: "tweeters at u.washington.edu" <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Subject: [Tweeters] Chukar or No?
Date: Tue, 3 Jun 2014 14:17:42 -0700


Thanks so much to the many people who responded to my "listing" question about a Chukar recently seen in Discovery Park. I certainly feel as though I have been given permission to count if it if I were so inclined.

It had not occurred to me that the bird might have been used by a hunter for bird-dog training purposes. Given the madhouse that Discovery has become of late, it seems the best explanation so far. Drivers now disobey Park signage and park their cars wherever they feel like it. Photo-shoots with models, some with clothes, some without, crop up all too often. And public groups establishing their own off-leash dog areas are de rigeur. These groups often contain hunting dogs, so it would surprise me not a jot if a bird-hunter were training his doggy friends.

I don't have the time to use E-bird, so as to the validity of the sighting, I am not going to include it in my Discovery list (now nearly 35 years old). It clearly needed some assistance to get there. As a rule of thumb, if the bird comes from a reasonably well established local population, and is mobile,I would include it. Hence I have listed Monk Parakeet, which was around the park for six or seven years in the 80s and Mute Swan which had a population on Vancouver Island. But I have rejected Mandarin Duck and Eurasian Goldfinch: who knows there they came from. It's been fun - Dave

--
David Hutchinson, Owner
Flora & Fauna: Nature Books
Discovery Gardens: Native Plants
GSP Forest Restoration Steward
Discovery Park
3213 West Wheeler St., #6
Seattle,WA.98199