Subject: [Tweeters] Whooper & Gyrfalcon - NO
Date: Feb 27 17:39:41 2007
From: Lynn Schulz - linusq at worldnet.att.net


Hi Tweeters:
Sorry that this report is late. A small field trip group from Rainier and
Tahoma Audubons toured the Skagit and Samish Flats on Sun, Feb 25. It was a
cool day, temps were in the low 40's, with some low winds and rain at times.
Our first stop was a quite-lengthy search for the Whooper Swan near Conway.
We searched the fields w/ the swan flocks east of I-5 near exit 221. The
swans were mostly Trumpeter Swans with a few Tundra Swans. Over on the west
side of I-5, some of us visited the Red Barn country store in Conway. Two
of our guys walked across the road and searched through the swans in that
area off of Pioneer hwy. Those swans were mainly Tundra. Unfortunately, NO
WHOOPER SWAN was seen. We looked for falcons in the area and dipped on that
too. Snow Geese were flying into some fields on Fir Island.
At the Skagit WLA we walked the 2-mile loop trail at the Skagit Game Range.
It was pretty quiet, and we walked in a clockwise direction. Golden-crowned
Sparrows were in several areas and at the boat launch we watched a male
Hairy Woodpecker possibly excavating a nest. He was really making the wood
chips fly. On the trail past the second footbridge we observed a
white-striped WHITE-THROATED SPARROW on the trail. A heavy "shower" started
that I will call rain as it lasted from late morning until mid- afternoon.
We left the Skagit WLA and drove on Fir Island out to the North Fork Access
on Rawlins Road. It was quiet there, but we saw moderate numbers of Bald
Eagles. Snow Geese flocks were in the center of Fir Island. We saw
moderate numbers of Bald Eagles at every area we visited on Sunday.
We hurried north thru the Skagit Flats on Best Road which becomes Farm-to
Mkt Rd, and turned left to Bayview on Josh Wilson Rd. We dipped on the
Kestrel that sometimes is in this area. Down at Bayview SP we scanned
Padilla Bay, and picked up a few species including Common Loon, and Lesser
Scaup.
We continued north to the Samish Flats, turning right on D'Arcy Rd, but
missed seeing a Kestrel there. It was raining. We continued north on
Bayview-Edison Rd, north of D'Arcy Rd, and we stopped to view a
bedraggled-looking hawk perched on a telephone line. This bird was a
mottled brown color. It turned out to be a Rough-legged Hawk. It was not
illustrated in Sibley, but most closely resembles a Rough-legged Hawk (RLHA)
on p 398, lower left in Wheeler's "Raptors of Western North America".
Wheeler calls it a "RLHA, adult male light morph (moderately marked type)
[March]". This roughie was just one of many RLHA's we saw in many plumages
on the Samish Flats. We laughed later as we looked at roughies in Sibley
and said we had seen every sex and plumage and then some! It was a
Rough-legged Hawk clinic on the Samish flats! We also found out that
finding a hawk perched on a phone wire was not a guarantee of a roughie,
because we saw several Red-tailed Hawks perched on wires.
On the Samish Flats, we were searching for the "very, very-light Gyrfalcon"
reported by Tom Aversa on the hotline. He reported it on Wed, Feb 21 on
Sullivan Road. We toured around Sullivan road but there was NO GYRFALCON.
As we pulled out of Sullivan Road onto Bayview-Edison Road, we observed a
nice dark adult HARLAN'S HAWK perched on the field just to the west of
Bayv-Ed Rd. It then flew to a fence post behind a hay shed. We scanned the
fields here, still looking for the mythical Gyrfalcon. A SHORT-EARED OWL
was perched on the field to the east of Bayv-Ed Rd. It flew, and suddenly a
PEREGRINE FALCON flew in and harrassed it. That Peregrine then flew out and
perched on a roughly-ploughed field southwest of the Samish T.
We stopped at the West 90, and they have installed a sanican there! I guess
that is our WDFW parking permits at work. From the West 90, we only saw one
Short-eared Owl. There were many Northern Harriers. Finally the rain let
up, and we saw a (small) patch of sunshine. We watched a aerial dogfight to
the north between a DARK-MORPH ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK and a Northern Harrier. We
ran out of time and did not go farther north on the flats to try to see the
50 male and 17 female Eurasian Wigeon that had been reported by Tom Aversa
on the hotline.
Despite dipping on Gyr and Whooper, our participants thought it had been a
good day. We saw 51 species.
Yours, Carol Schulz, Des Moines, linusq at att.net