I spent a couple of hours yesterday bicycling around the Samish flats.
For anyone with any interest, I would highly recommend it as a more
intimate way of experiencing one of the best winter birding spots
around. It is fun to coast past those raptor on telephone poles while
they glower down at you; as long as you keep moving you can pass at a
walking pace without causing them to fly. Of course you don't cover as
much ground as in a car, and I did miss having a scope, but the chest
strap for the bins worked well, drivers were courteous, and there were
no hills because it is, after all, flat. There were no Gyrs around, but
the west 90 lived up to it's reputation with HARRIERS, BALD EAGLE,
RED-TAILLED HAWK, ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK, and SHORT-EARED OWL all visible at
one time from the parking lot. It was nice to see the owls, they seem to
have been on a decline over the past several years. Does anyone have any
data to support that impression? They were a group of 4 flying well
above tree level south of the west 90 parking lot, not sure what they
were doing up there. Other highlights were a huge raft of DUNLIN off of
Bayview-Edison Road (on the bike you can hear their wings as they fly in
and out) and a large group of TUNDRA and TRUMPETER SWANS at the
intersection of T-Loop and Farm-to-Market Road. As Marv Breese would say
"It was a good day".

Jack Stephens
Edmonds, WA
jstephens62 at comcast.net