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<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Nov 26, 2025 at 08:49:21, Tim Brennan via Tweeters <<a href="mailto:tweeters@u.washington.edu">tweeters@u.washington.edu</a>> wrote:<br></div>
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<div>If each county in our state had a totem pole with three birds on it... what would those birds be?</div>
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I’ll take a crack at Kitsap. If I were doing a pole for my driveway, it’d definitely be a Bald Eagle on top with Raven underneath (and as someone who collects first nations art, I’ve considered it). I expect, though, that other counties have better challenges for this if we’re restricting things to one county only, and I say that despite living 5 minutes from the Seabeck eagle hangout. </div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr">For a county-wide pole, the first two birds I’d nominate are Pileated Woodpecker and Red-Breasted Nuthatch (a species being monitored here in the county for Audubon’s ongoing Climate Change survey). After that, I think there are a number of good candidates: Black-capped Chickadee, Stellar’s Jay, Spotted Towhee, Surf, Black and White-winged Scoter, Marbled Murrelet, maybe Pigeon Guillemot. Man, so many choices — maybe Purple Martin? Maybe Barred Owl? Limiting it to three is really tough. </div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr">As I think about it, I’m not sure I can there’s an obvious answer to “if you are looking for this species, you have to bird Kitsap to find it”, where back in California we had Yellow-billed Magpie as an obvious bird to go for. </div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr">(Sidebar: these kinds of discussions always remind me that “rarity” is very subjective to a person and locations: many years ago I was out birding along San Francisco Bay, and I ran into a very nice birder who turned out to be from Washington, and who really wanted to find Snowy Egrets, a lifer for her. And a bird that to me, in that location, was very common and easy to find. I was happy to help her find one, but I’ve always kept that in mind as a reminder to not ignore the common or “trash” birds because there will always be someone who really wants to see that species. Except maybe Starlings… (grin))</div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr">chuq</div><div dir="ltr"><br clear="all"><div><div class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div style="color:rgb(39,39,40);font-family:-apple-system,sans-serif;font-size:14px"><div><br></div><div><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px">---------------------------------------<br><br>Chuq Von Rospach (<a href="http://www.chuq.me" target="_blank">http://www.chuq.me</a>)</div><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px">Silverdale, Washington</div><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px">Birder, Nature and Wildlife Photographer<br><br>Email me at: <a href="mailto:chuqvr@gmail.com" target="_blank">chuqvr@gmail.com</a><br>Mastodon: @<a href="mailto:chuqvr@fosstodon.org" target="_blank">chuqvr@fosstodon.org</a><br><br>Stay Updated with what I'm doing: <a href="https://www.chuq.me/6fps/" target="_blank">https://www.chuq.me/6fps/</a><br>My latest e-book: <a href="https://www.chuq.me/ebooks" target="_blank">https://www.chuq.me/ebooks</a><br><br></div></div></div></div></div></div><br>
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