Hi everyone -
With the discovery of the Eastern Bluebird in Richland this past week, we've finally broken our long Washington drought without adding a new state bird. Thanks Jane Abel for the Nov 30 discovery. [obviously, all of this only becomes 'official' if/when it is added to the WBRC official state list, but odds seem good on this one]

How long was the drought? Well, in a state where we've been averaging 2 or 3 new state birds a year for quite a while, it took 586 days between state birds this time. The last state bird was the Common Crane, on April 23, 2021. The last drought this long was 1996-1997! Back then, the species before the gap was Eurasian Collared Dove and the one after was our first Brown Booby. Since then, about 70 new species to the state list.

Back in 2021, I ran the 4th round of "Predicting the Next 5 WA Birds" in WOS News [here <https://wos.org/documents/wosnews/wosnews189.pdf>]. The first 2 state birds from this round came in 2021, with Winter Wren, then Common Crane. Then came the drought. Now , with Eastern Bluebird, we've got #3 of this round's 5 species. Only two people predicted Eastern Bluebird for this round: Congrats Gary Bletsch and Curtis Mahon. Gary also predicted the Common Crane, so he's the first person this round to have accurately chosen two of the new state birds.

It will be interesting to see whether this bodes the beginning of another flurry of surprise birds at the pace we've long had, or if we'll be waiting another 2 years before the next state bird comes to visit.

Matt Bartels
Secretary, WBRC
Seattle, WA