Subject: Skagit/Samish Flats; optics
Date: Nov 23 22:22:12 2001
From: Kevin Li - kdli at msn.com


After a late start today, Kris Baker and I went to various spots north of Seattle; highlights included patches of bright sunshine, 4 short eared owls at the West 90 (3) and at the south end of the Padilla Bay dike trail (1, doing battle with a harrier).
A peregrine sat on the Fir Island ground east of Maupin Rd about a 1/4 mile south of Rawlins Rd. At the end of Rawlins Rd on the north fork of the Skagit we saw numerous harriers but no short eared owls. We missed the great egret reported earlier. Many gunshots were heard close by, and for some reason the spot was relatively devoid of birds.
We saw another peregrine fly overhead as we walked the south end of the dike trail at Padilla Bay.
A kestrel was just North of the west end of Darcie Rd., past all the blueberry bushes, on the power lines. A thousand or more Dunlin sat placidly just east of the west 90.
Harriers were all over the place, Rough-legged Hawks were here and there. A thousand or more snow geese were on Fir Island, west of Wylie Rd in the field near the night heron spot.

Jeff Smith recently posted an inquiry on optics; I suggest he check out Pete Dunne's write-up on binoculars at http://www.njaudubon.org/NatureNotes/Optics.html .

Kevin Li
Ballard, USA
kdli at msn.com