Hi Everyone--

I too joined the throngs of birders in search of rarities. On Saturday, I drove north, stopping to visit the White Ibis at 1087 Hwy 6 (MP 9 or so) near Raymond, the Great-tailed Grackle on the Wolfkill Feed and Seed store in Stanwood (271st and Florence, easy to find if you take highway 532 to 72nd, turn right onto 72nd, drive north to the end, then make a hard left on Cedar Home and drive downhill to the RR tracks), the 2 Snowy Owls at the Big Ditch (from the grackle, go back uphill to Pioneer Hwy, go north until it meets the old highway, take a left on the old highway and head out immediately on the dirt road in front of you), and the Northern Hawk Owl between Stein and Delta Line Roads in Blaine. All delightful, and all immediately visible.

One important note on the ibis: This is not the individual that Owen Schmidt videotaped in Newport, OR last November! Whereas the Newport bird was in nearly adult plumage (just a gray smudge on the face, but otherwise clean white), the Raymond bird is a subadult with extensive brown streaking on the back, a grayish head and neck, and dull pink soft parts.

On Sunday, I drove out of Blaine on Peace Portal Drive (exit 275 from I-5, next stop is Canada if you miss it) to Drayton Harbor Road to Semiahmoo Spit. On the harbor side were 8 Barrow's Goldeneyes, 2 Long-tailed Ducks, 4 Common Loons, 1 Red-throated Loon, 2 Green-winged Teal, and large undetermined numbers of Canada Goose, Northern Pintail, Greater Scaup, White-winged Scoter, Common Goldeneye, and Bufflehead. On the bay side were 4 Harlequin Ducks, 10 Black Scoters, maybe 20 Brant (too far away to see if they were intermediate-types), and more rafts of White-winged and Surf Scoters, and Greater Scaup. Double-crested Cormorants and Harbor Seals shared the inner breakwater at the marina. From there, I drove down to Birch Bay (more pintails, scoters, and scaup), visited the Northern Hawk Owl again, then went down to the Samish Flats. Peregrines were much in evidence, and I saw between 2 and 4 birds in the box bounded by Bayview-Edison Road, D'Arcy Road, and Farm-to-Market Road.!
There were two together on a snag about 200 yards north of Boe Road (Delorme mistakenly calls this "Bow Road"). A Prairie Falcon ate a mouse and rested a while on a utility pole along Bayview-Edison Road just south of Sullivan Road. Trumpeter Swans were pleasantly numerous; I counted over 300 in 4 groups. It was getting late, and I stopped in Snohomish (US 2 to route 9 to Snohomish exit/2nd St, then south on Lincoln to the Pilchuck River) hoping for a Gyrfalcon; like everyone else that day, I did not see it. So many birds, so little time.

Mark Miller
Hillsboro, OR
miller97124 at lycos.com
(PS: Apologies to Owen if I misspelled his name.)


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