Tweeters,



On Saturday, Nate Senner and I braved the cold, wet weather and headed up to some sights in Snohomish and Skagit counties.



We stopped by the Everett Sewage Treatment Ponds, where there were hundreds of Ruddy Ducks and many many shovelers, but no unusual ducks. We had flock of dowitchers blazing by, pursued by a Pergerine. The falcon picked a bird out of the flock, then had its prey stolen by another Peregrine, who wrestled the bird away in mid-air and flew off with it. We also saw a nice dark rufous Red-tailed Hawk here.



Our next stop was Port Susan Bay Preserve. The marshes were packed with Pintail and Green-winged Teal, plus a few Wigeon, Mallards, and other dabblers. I scanned through them for Eurasian green-wings and wigeon, but the sheer density of birds made looking through the flocks daunting. We had about 20 Long-billed Dowitchers feeding in the marsh, and the first of many huge flocks of Dunlin we saw out over the bay. We saw these flocks from Port Susan up to the Skagit, mostly as dense clouds in the distance, and guesstimated there were upwards of 10,000 birds. We also had small numbers of American Pipits overhead, here and at most of our other stops.



We swung by the Stanwood sewage ponds, which were again packed with ducks. Most of the birds here were Lesser Scaup and Ring-necked Ducks, with a single Canvasback and a few dabblers.



We moved on to the Big Ditch. Here we had our best bird of the day, a Great Egret which flew in from the south and landed in the marshy area just southwest of the parking lot.



The Skagit WMA Hayden/Snow Goose Preserve had many thousands of Snow Geese, though we didn?t see any blues or oddballs. Nate thought he had a smaller bird, but it dropped in among the hordes and wasn?t seen again. The marshes had about 100 Long-billed Dowitchers that were kind enough to call frequently. Some were even feeding within 20 feet of us.



At the Jensen access there were more hunters than birds, so we made our stop a brief one.



The last place we visited was the North Fork access. From there we could see many thousands of ducks out on the bay, but mostly too distant to identify. There were a few swans out among the ducks (again, too far to reliably ID, though we heard several Trumpeters calling). The day ended with one of my favorite birds, and one that I?ve found the North Fork access to be quite good for. Two Short-eared Owls popped up out of the marshes and coursed around before settling on snags.



Good birding!



Matt Dufort
Seattle, WA