I apologize for these belated weekend reports - here are the highlights.

Saturday had me at Fir Island, looking for owls once again. Weather was
horrible, cloudy all day but at least the rain stayed away. I saw two
snowy owls - one from Jensen's Access, about 1/4 mile to the east. One
at Hayton Preserve - out in the driftwood. Late in the day I went to
the preserve to watch this owl, hoping it would fly to the farm fields
to hunt. Right before dusk (I'm guessing it was dusk, who can tell with
all the cloud cover?!), it flew, came up with a decent sized bird (maybe
a bufflehead? but it was very far away and getting dark). It was flying
away with its catch when an adult bald eagle took a run at it. The owl
climbed higher than the eagle and the eagle followed. The owl dropped
its prey, which surprisingly enough started trying to fly away - but its
freedom was short lived as the eagle quickly took it right out of the
air and had dinner. It was an amazing interaction!

Also watched a peregrine hunt the very large dunlin flock at the
preserve, out over the bay. A part of the snow goose flock moved in and
wave after wave of birds came in to join it. There were thousands of
birds. On Saturday also had a very cooperative short eared owl at the
North Fork Access. It landed on a log at the corner where the sign is
covered by a plastic bag and preened and hung out for well over an hour.
Other than that, a few bald eagles around and quite a few harriers. The
meadowlarks were singing!

Sunday I ventured out to the Keystone Spit to look for the Snowy Owls.
I did not find them, the wind was blowing VERY hard and it was also
raining. The waves were crashing over the jetty with great force. I
did see surf scoters, ring billed ducks, buffleheads, and a lone
canvasback in the pond at Driftwood Park. The ferry ride over from
Mukilteo had two Marbled Murrelets, two Pigeon Guillemots, and lots of
Surf Scoters and Barrow's Goldeneye.

Finally, yesterday, I once again headed to the Spit, arriving there just
after dawn. The highlights were a rough legged hawk hunting, one brief
sighting of a MARBLED MURRELET on the bay spotted from Driftwood Park, a
short eared owl late in the day, and one Snowy Owl. The Snowy moved up
and down the spit a few times, but seemed very content to just sleep at
about the midpoint of the spit, very visible, for much of the day. I
took a break to visit with friends and returned to the spit around 4
p.m. I relocated the snowy owl who had apparently just finished a very
good meal. He had much blood on his face, concentrated near the beak
but as high up as his eyes! I at first thought he had been in a fight
but he must have caught something kind of large and had quite a meal.
If anyone has ever seen an eagle or hawk (or even a predatory mammal)
after they have eaten a big meal they get "meat drunk", and can't fly or
move and look, for lack of a better description, woozy. That is exactly
how this owl was acting!

Terrible weather all weekend but several very good sightings and
wonderful time spent with a snowy owl!

Cathy Wise
Snohomish, WA
cathy.wise at cingular.com