WOW what an afternoon! In my travels for work today I had the pleasure of driving the Stilliguamish Valley and the great fields near the Stilly tidal mouth and Camano Island. Normally a 3 Kestrel day would be a pretty special thing in Western Washington (2 East of I-5 at the Silvana exit and 1 near the tidal mouth of the Stilly) but today it played a distant 3rd. Many birds of prey now working the fields where you would expect them to be. Harriers, Rough-legged Hawks, Red-tails, Bald Eagles, Short-eared Owls and Kestrels were a fairly common site today with a few rays of sun poking out and about!
I believe I saw a Gyr Falcon hunting the slough to the South of the highway and East of the Stilliguamish River as you make you way onto Camano Island. There is a great access area here and although it is being hunted for ducks and pheasants right now (don't wear green and tan like I did), still provides miles of walking and scoping! Anyway the bird stayed low and was moving very fast but was grey (all over) had very fast wing beats and of course stayed just out of my range of vision. This bird was larger than the Gyr I remember from the West 90 last year but am not sure what else it could have been. No white rump patch of a Harrier and it was more compact/fast/powerful in flight. It liked to fly and perch rather than soar over the fields.??? Any thoughts? Perhaps if anybody is near this area with a scope they can get a better view than I did.
Tops for the day was a pair of Red Tails that took down a Snow Goose right next to my vehicle as I drove up the lower Stilly near Silvana. Quite a sight and by the time I had turned around to see if I could see the kill (roughly 3 minutes) the hawk had the chest open and was gorging himself while his partner cried from a tree nearby. A bloody headed Red Tail is not something you get to see everyday and the Snow Goose is fairly similar in size to the Red Tail! I am still trembling with excitement. Snapped one really blurry shot (of course).
I saw more than 15 male adult Hooded Mergansers today as well (1 group of 7 in a small pond) as they seem to be dropping into almost every available body of water right now! Love em'! The bay to the South of the city/town on Camano has thousands of ducks/geese in it as well! Winter is here! WOHOOOOOOO!

Bryan
Shoreline
jennandbryan at msn.com