Yesterday while driving home I was shocked when I noticed a flash of white and realized it was a Black-billed Magpie! They are uncommon in Seattle, to say the least and don’t usually venture west of the Cascades. I pulled over to capture a video of it hanging out on Beacon Hill.
Yes, seeing a Magpie here is very strange. I grew up in the Seattle/Renton area, and have lived here for 60 years. I never used to hear crickets either. I hear them all the time now. Lately, there have been praying mantis’s in my neighborhood. They used to only be seen East of the mountains. In Issaquah, there used to be ponds that would be thick enough with ice in winters to ice skate safely on them. As we all can see, there have been two distinct summers over the past 10 years in which Mt. Rainier has had less snow than ever before in August-Sept. My father-in-law, now deceased. was born a few years after 1900. He said in Spokane they never used to have slugs. They have them in abundance now.
The climate – the world – and nature is changing rapidly.
*Ice skating ponds were safe in the 1940s – It’s been awhile!
I might have seen this very magpie. Only one I’ve ever seen in Seattle, and near that neighborhood and in 2022. The crows were fascinated by it.