Subject: [Tweeters] Another Seattle Nighthawk sighting--what's the deal?
Date: Wed Jul 4 18:01:43 PDT 2018
From: Joshua Glant - josh.n.glant at gmail.com

Hi Ed,

I saw 4 nighthawks feeding over a clearcut near Ravensdale two days ago, so I would say your latter hypothesis is pretty apt. I believe that gravel rooftops would have to stage a comeback before urban nighthawks could.

Good birding,
Joshua Glant


> On Jul 4, 2018, at 4:31 PM, Ed Newbold <ednewbold1 at yahoo.com> wrote:

>

> Hi all,

>

> I was delighted to hear of Mary Hrudkaj's audio-sightings of Seattle Nighthawks in her wonderful Special Olympics post. Thanks Mary!

>

>

> Our friend Mark Moon also reported a very recent Seattle sighting, a bird continuously beeping over the Safeway on Capitol Hill at 15th and John on Monday July 2nd around 10 pm.

>

> When Mark told me this I began to brim with an unwise amount of optimism that this could maybe be a bird on territory!

>

> (Like many, I burn a candle that the Nighthawk might return to Seattle some day as a breeder. It is 38-40 years gone now.)

>

> To informally test out the bird-on-territory hypothesis we went over to the Safeway last night and spent some quality time around 10 pm in the parking lot and walking around on the sidewalks as July 4 revelry proceeded in the drinking establishments filled with people mostly younger than us and not thinking "It's passed my bed-time."

>

> Unfortunately, we neither saw nor heard any Nighthawks. But I'm curious about these sightings. It's late in the season, is it not, for the regular migration of Nighthawks?

>

> Is it possible that Nighthawks are slightly prospering in the nearby clearcuts and balds of the lowland foothills? A more pessimistic explanation is these could be wandering refugees from the drought in OR and CA.

>

> I'm always interested in what the erudite readership of Tweeters might have to say on about this,

>

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> Thanks all,

> Ed Newbold Beacon Hill

>

>

> PS Also, I've been trying to research the big solar projects that are coming into Eastern Washington and I don't seem to be able to ascertain if these are just an array of solar collectors or the special solar plants that concentrate rays and trap and burn birds. Does anyone know?

>

> PPS Richard Rowlett is also the person who had the most surprising (to me) Tweeter-sighting of the year last year, when he witnessed a Black-crowned Night Heron fleeing the Fourth of July madness on Lake Union.

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