Hi Tweets,

Marissa Benavente and I birded between Stanwood and
Samish Island on Sunday, finding that a good variety
of "winter" birds are arriving and some of the fall
migrants are still around.

One of the compensations when winter settles in is
birding "the Skagit" (and the Stillaguamish, and the
Samish, etc). I think the best thing about birding up
north, besides the sheer spectacle of large flocks of
birds in a beautiful setting, is the great variety of
species. Even in the dead of winter, when the days are
short, it's not hard to see a large diversity (for
Washington) of seabirds (loons, grebes, alcids, etc),
swans, ducks and geese, shorebirds, raptors, and a
variety of passerines - especially sparrows.

We began at the Stanwood sewage ponds. The small ponds
are all torn up - maybe for dredging? Still, there were
good numbers of ducks on the ponds, with high numbers of
Ruddy Ducks, Scaup (Lesser for sure) and Ring-necked
Ducks. Nothing too unusual there.

On our way to the Big Ditch we saw some crows mobbing a
spot in the top of some trees. We pulled over to look,
expecting a Red-tail or accipiter, but were surprised to
see a BARN OWL out in plain sight! The owl kept the
crows at bay by holding its wings out to make itself
look bigger and rocking back and forth. Eventually the
crows gave up and the owl retreated into denser branches.

There wasn't a lot of action at the Big Ditch, but we
hung around long enough to see a Bewick's Wren foraging
on the side of a concrete slab at the water gate. It
looked for all the world like a Canyon Wren in behavior
as it clung to the sheer side of the concrete. As I was
taking a picture north, up the ditch, a BITTERN flew out
and over the dike into the reeds. And on the way out we
found a flock of 80-100 pipits foraging in the plowed
fields. We scanned for Lapland Longspurs without luck,
but did see some meadowlarks.

On Fir Island we went to the Hayton Reserve (aka the
Snow Goose reserve?). I like birding the game range, but
I usually give up until hunting is over because I just
don't enjoy birding in such close proximity to gunfire.
On arriving at the reserve Marissa spotted a Peregrine
coming up from one of the fields. It soared over the
road, slowly gaining height, and then came slowly over
our heads. We had incredible looks as it slowly circled,
not a single feather out of place. From about 1-200 feet
up it stooped into the slough near us and flushed out a
flock of a dozen Long-billed Dowitchers, but came up
without anything. It was an immature that fits the
description of the falcon that Michael Dossett saw just
across the road on Saturday: sort of gray-brown, or
slaty brown on the back, well-streaked on the chest and
belly with a distinct malar, but pale crown.

Within another 20 minutes we had also seen Red-tail,
Harrier, Bald Eagle and a Cooper's Hawk. There was also
a good variety of shorebirds there including a Greater
Yellowlegs, 4 Least Sandpipers, a dozen Long-billed
Dowitchers, several Snipe and Dunlin and some huge
flocks of Black-bellied Plovers flying south along the
bay shore. We estimated there may have been as many
1,000 to 2,000 plovers. There were even more ducks than
that flying around out there and a flock of about 800
Snow Geese were in the field to the west until some
hunters sprang up and shot about 5 of them, with the
rest heading for the bay. So much for "not flushing the
geese" so they can store up their energy...

As we stood watching a snipe that bobbed up and down, up
and down, like a Jack Snipe (but lacking all the Jack
Snipe field marks) an immature NORTHERN SHRIKE flew in
briefly. It was very brownish and was almost totally
lacking a mask. To top it all off, we heard a rattly
call several times then a single LONGSPUR, presumably
Lapland, flew by and landed way out in the field to the
east.

Near the North Fork Skagit access a female Rough-legged
Hawk soared over. The only other Roughie we saw was one
near the east 90 of the Samish flats.

To make a long story a bit shorter, we birded Samish
Island and the flats. We saw an adult Peregrine just
north of the west 90 and another adult south of the
Bayview Edison Rd and Sullivan road junction. There was
a dark morph Redtail near Sullivan Road also, a Rufous
morph near the West 90 and the Harlan's Hawk was back on
territory along Darcy Rd.

We hung around long enough to look for Short-eared Owls
at the west 90 and were happy to see three of them as
dusk came. Two were to the northwest, although I usually
see more of them to the south and southeast. What a day!
What a great way to kick off the winter birding season.
Oh yeah, it was gorgeously sunny all day. I won't be
holding my breath waiting for that again...

good birding,

Jim Flynn
Seattle , WA--
buteoreg at attbi.com
Seattle, WA