Subject: Stanwood/Skagit Flats on Monday, 19 January
Date: Jan 20 17:37:22 1998
From: Anna Coles - acoles at u.washington.edu


Hello Tweetsters. Deborah Raymond and I did a little afternoon birding
yesterday. We first tried to find the reported Snowy Owl in the Stanwood
area. We didn't find the Snowy, but we did have a nice look at an
American Kestrel on the wing and then perching, south of Stanwood.

At the West 90 on Samish Island Road, we spotted a Prairie Falcon on a
utility pole along the part of the road toward Bow/Edison from the West
90.

We didn't see many birds besides the two mentioned above, except several
smallish groups of swans in the Fir Island area and, of course, a mystery
raptor: a smallish bird, heavily streaked (vertical rather than horiz.
stripes) breast, long tail & wide wings, front-to-back; possibly a
Cooper's Hawk or Sharpy? We couldn't get a good fix on size, so we are
not at all sure of the ID. The bird was along the river dike north of
Conway on Fir Island. If anyone has a comment on the bird, or the rest of
the posting, please cc me, since I'm not now subscribed to Tweeters.

I'm not complaining about our small quantity of birds sighted--I'm quite
happy with a two-falcon day! Good birding to all, --Anna Coles,
Seattle, WA acoles at u.washington.edu