Dear Tweetsters,

As some of you may be aware, the Washington Ornithological Society is in
the process of revising and updating A Birder's Guide to Washington, the
state's main bird-finding guide published in 2003. The guide has been
hugely successful, selling out of all printed copies a while back. (A
second printing is available on a print-on-demand basis at Buteo Books,
Amazon.com, and Seattle Audubon Society's Nature Shop.)

There are some 30+ authors involved in updating and revising the guide.
In some cases, this has meant just making sure that the original
information is still current and accurate and correcting it when it is
not. In other cases, it has meant eliminating some destinations or
adding new ones. Ryan Merrill is updating the valuable bar graphs of
seasonal abundance, and Matt Bartels is updating the equally valuable
annotated checklist.

The American Birding Association, the publisher of the guide, asks that
someone other than the author "ground truths" the material submitted.
This basically involves driving or hiking to the locations mentioned and
checking that the directions and descriptions make sense and are accurate.

I am now asking for volunteers from the Washington birding community to
step forward and take responsibility for one or more of the 60+ sections
in the guide. (I will list them below.) Please select an area and
contact me at jhadle AT clearwire.com to indicate your availability and
your territory preference. I would like the ground-truthing to be done
by the end of the year, but I do understand that in some cases there are
hurdles, such as snow in the mountains or hunting closures and the like.

When you are assigned a territory, I will email you a copy of the
author's submission that you will be ground-truthing.

Do not hesitate to contact me if you have questions.

Thanks, Jane Hadley

Chapter 1
Port Townsend and Vicinity
Discovery Bay to Port Angeles
The High Olympics
Elwha River to the Pacific Coast
Outer Olympic Coast
South Coast

Chapter 2
Whidbey Island
Fidalgo Island
San Juan Islands
Skagit Flats
Samish Flats
North Cascades Highway
Mount Baker Highway

Chapter 3
Seattle and Vicinity
Snoqualmie Valley to Everett
Stanwood and Camano Island
Across the Sound (Kitsap County)
Tacoma and Vicinity
Hood Canal and East Olympics
Mount Rainier

Chapter 4
Mount Saint Helens
Vancouver and Vicinity
Western Columbia Gorge
Mount Adams

Chapter 5
Snoqualmie Pass and Vicinity
Cle Elum and Vicinity
Teanaway River and Swauk Creek
Kittitas Valley
Columbia Slope: Vantage to Sentinel Gap
Taneum and Manastash Creeks
Wenas Creek Loop
From Yakima to Ellensburg
Yakima Training Center
Yakima and Vicinity
Chinook Pass Highway
White Pass Highway
Eastern Cojlumbia Gorge and Klickitat River
Rock Creek and Lake Umatilla
Tri-Cities and Vicinity

Chapter 6
The Potholes and Moses Lake
Lower Crab Creek and Othello
Southern Columbia Basin
Beezley Hills and Moses Coulee
Waterville Plateau and Bridgeport
Grand Coulee
Northeastern Columbia Basin

Chapter 7
Stevens Pass to Wenatchee
Entiat Mountains to Lake Chelan
Methow Valley
Okanogan Valley
Okanogan Cascades
Okanogan Highlands

Chapter 8
Kettle Range
From the Columbia to the Pend Oreille
Spokane and Vicinity

Chapter 9
Western Lowlands
Blue Mountains
Snake and Grande Ronde River Canyons
The Palouse