Hi all,
Delia and I were at the Redmond Retention Pond yesterday am where Delia's Merlin ap told her she was hearing a "Blue Grosbeak" at one point. This seems kind of funny now that Shamik Ghosh has found a for-sure one at Marymoor. We didn't give it a second thought at the time, bad on us! 
Also at the ponds we ran into an extremely nice young man from Boston who asked me a question and I assumed he was a beginning birder, but it immediately became clear he was an accomplished birder already, just working a new area.
His name is Kalpesh Krishna and he wrote us this note:     
"I am spending my summer in Seattle doing an internship. I am living at UDistrict close to University of Washington. I will be around till the end of August. I was hoping to get as many birds as possible!
I was wondering what were the best places to bird outside the King county? I was looking for American Dippers, Hutton Vireo, Hammond Flycatcher, California Quails, MacGillivrays Warblers, Cassins Vireo, Black Swift, Yellow headed blackbird and a bunch of other species, and it seems like going outside King county is better to get them?"

We are intending to keep in touch with Kalpesh and invite him on trips this summer but I thought he might also benefit from other birders who have more knowledge than we do, aren't so trapped in work and maybe even have a car that can make it over Snoqualmie Pass without flashing a "Check Engine" light and losing power.
Hi email:

kalpesh at cs.umass.edu


Thanks all
Ed Newbold  (and Delia Scholes)  residential Beacon Hill where we had only our second-ever  Turkey Vulture sighting at 5 today.  ednewbold1 at yahoo.com