BIRDS IN PARADISE

                       House finch taken by our neighbor, Ned Griffin

This year’s Migration Bird Count yielded some interesting birds, least of which was a trumpeter swan, which flew over us as we sat by the bay eating our lunch.

Three barred owls and two great horned owls made us think we were on another planet.  Jim even spied a yellow-rumped warbler (butter-butts we call them ). Brown cowbirds, oyster catchers, bufflehead ducks (that have not yet flown north), a red-tailed hawk, and some tree swallows gave us seven new species we have not see in recent past listings at this time.  So while, some experts say numbers are dwindling, we did not find it this year on ShawIsland.

In the past week, I have had more finches at the deck feeders than I have seen in years:  Goldfinch, house finch, pine siskin, and purple finch all have vied for the seed put out for them.  An islander, who has obviously put a lot of money into thistle seed, had to have 50+ goldfinch at the feeders. We sat for 20 minutes watching the feeding frenzy.

Some interesting facts, and I am sure the results are not yet finalized:

 ~Columbia, Peruand Ecuadorlead the list with most number of species found

~USA is 7^th and Mexico  8th

~USA topped the list (by far)  with number of lists- over 68,000 (lower 48 states)

            followed by Canada with just 12,700 lists

~Worldwide 7,600 species recorded-  lower USA 671 species

~Worldwide 131,000 lists

Obviously Americans love their birds!  But some parts of the world are catching up- slowly!