Conference Summary
By Bill Tweit
We were blessed with great spring weather on the north end of the Olympic Peninsula. The weather, the birds and the organizers combined to produce another enjoyable annual meeting, attended by 85 people. The field trips found a totala of 168 species, and included:
• a pelagic trip out of Neah Bay which found hundreds of puffins and a Peregrine on Tatoosh Island and a Yellow-billed,L.o,onin winter plumage.
• Cape Flattery hawk watching blesse’d with a late movement of hawks that included three Northern Goshawks.
• Dungeness and Elwha River tours which produced most of the passerine residents and migrants.
• Hurricane Ridge which offered a flock of White-winged Crossbills, five Black Bears and a Golden Eagle.
• Dungeness lowlands which had a Red-necked Phalarope, booming bitterns and a Marbled Godwit, and
• Protection Island boat trips which produced puffins, oystercatchers, Marbled Murrelets …
The evening talks covered the hawk migration at Cape Flattery (D. Byrne and the Clarks), the relationship between avian communities and the ecological patterns of the Olympic Peninsula (Fred Sharpe), and the Spotted Owls of the peninsula (Bruce Moorhead).
The people who labored to bring us this meeting and who deserve our thanks were Dory and Stan Smith, Virginia and Welden Clark, and Tom Schooley.
WOS business included expanding the WOS Board from seven to nine members and adding the position of vice president. Your new or nearly new officers for 1992-93 are: Tom Schooley, president; Dennis Paulson, vice-president; Jan Wiggers, secretary; and Hal Opperman, treasurer. Board members are Michael Donahue, Judy DuVall, Linda Feltner, Nancy Morningstar and Andy Stepniewski.