Yesterday (Sunday), I made my annual migration north to the Skagit River to see the eagles. I took the Old Skagit River Hwy, per one Tweets recommendation (thanks!), but saw only three eagles along the banks. It was rainy, windy, and slushy with more water than snow on the roads. At the milepost 100 pullout, the eagle watcher volunteers thankfully had the scopes covered by tents to protect them from the rain, but only six eagles were along the river. The previous day, a boat count had accounted for 200 eagles in the area. We stopped at Rockport, but found only three eagles. One, though, was a very dark immature that we got a good look at.

I?ve been coming up for the eagle migration off and on for a decade, and this was the lowest count I?ve encountered. I understand that nature doesn?t perform on command, but I felt disappointed nevertheless.

After that we hit the Bow-Edison road and found the pink guard rail, but there was no activity. I suspect all the birds were hunkered down to get out of the wind.

The levies were very muddy, and well tramped by the hunters. We saw a great many in the fields toting their shotguns.

The snow geese were congregated in the back part of the gun club lands, so did not get a good look.

The trumpeter swans were clustered throughout the flats ? always a treat to watch. We hoped to find some tundra swans, but had no luck.

We counted as many eagles in the Skagit flats as we did on the river ? 22 at the day?s end. We watched a pair pick apart a snowgoose carcass in a tree. In the field next to their tree, a pile of feather marked the kill site.

The GBHs were many, majestically stalking the marshes. Some had their wings open, curved flat into the wind. Territorial display or wind abatement?

The harriers, though, were very much in evidence, coursing the fields both low and high. We got some nice close looks at harriers on wires, harriers on telephone poles, hunting harriers, and were treated to a brief harrier/owl dogfight, er, birdfight, over the Jensen Access snags. I tend to believe it was a short-earred owl, but with my nascent identification skills did not get a positive ID. She was nearly the same size as the harriers and hunted over the snags in a similar, low manner. She sat on a snag?s branch by the water?s edge, bowed into the wind, for a little while after that ? a rare treat in my birding experience.

All-in-all, a good birding day.

Margery SpearsSeattle, WAmargery_spears at hotmail.com