Tweeters,
For unknown reasons, I've been having an impossible time posting this message on Tweeters, hence my slow reply to Arienne Dorf's post on July 15 about a duck with a dart in its side at Bitter Lake in Seattle.  While birding in Olympia in March this year, Ed and Delia Newbold and I observed a Glaucous-winged Gull with a dart protruding from its breast.  The dart was probably several inches long, very thin shafted, had a round blue cap on the end of it, and is the type being marketed for shooting in blow guns.  I would encourage Adrienne and anyone else who sees birds targeted in this way to report their incidents to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife Law Enforcement office.  This may help the agency assess how frequently this problem is happening.  Let's hope this isn't some new fad in harassing wildlife, which presumably causes the eventual death of the animals struck.
Gary WilesOlympia