Well a drive to Edmonds this afternoon (3-4 p.m.) did not produce a Snowy Owl sighting. A nice male Hooded Merganser in the Edmonds Marsh with many Mallards, a few Widgeons and a Coopers Hawk nearby. Nice to see this marsh still converting back to its original condition (very slowly) in a sea of condos.
Started the day with a Red-breasted Sapsucker pecking away in the Doug. Fir and the very loud Red Mitred Parakeets eating the fruits of the Cedar Tree in the back yard! Red Tail is battling with the local Crow population to establish territory (2 weeks now) and quite a few Junco's, Chickadee's, Flicker's, and the usual House Finch, Pine Siskin crowd in the yard today. Very busy!
I floated the Skagit last weekend and the Bald Eagle totals were low between Marblemount and Rockport as we only saw 5 and 2 may have been repeats. Yesterday we floated the same stretch and the numbers were up....a lot! Roughly 56 were counted (hard to count large, swirling flocks that go in all directions and then reunite) in the same stretch on a miserably cold, wet day that kept all but the weirdo's like me off the river! The Chum runs seem to be down a bit this year so I am not sure yet how that will effect the Eagle numbers but with the record return the past 3 years they should at least be there for a while!

Bryan
Shoreline, Wa.
jennandbryan at msn.com