A friend of mine, Stefan Schlick, came up from Sacramento for a couple of days this weekend to visit and bird the area with me. Upon his arrival Saturday morning we headed up to Snohomish to search for the rarities being seen in the area and ran into a group of birders, including Ruth Patrick Sullivan, along SR 9 just south of Marsh Road who had their scopes already trained on the birds. Needless to say we had good (if distant) looks at both the WHOOPER SWAN and EMPEROR GOOSE.

Our next destination was Semiahmoo Spit, where the KING EIDER was present at the usual location near the wooden floats. We also observed several LONG-TAILED DUCKS and quite a few BRANT in the area, along with all three scoters.

We then headed down to the West 90 and observed a couple of SHORT-EARED OWLS, one of the coming in close and putting on a nice show. There was also a dark morph ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK on a pole near the parking lot.

Sunday we decided to try our luck on Bainbridge Island and the Kitsap Peninsula. We stopped by the Black-headed Gull spot on Bainbridge Island and ran into Brad Waggoner, who was also looking for the bird. I had seen the gull last weekend and thought it would be easy to locate again (not so). When Stefan and I left on Sunday the bird had not been seen; there was a EURASIAN WIGEON in amongst the other ducks near the dock.

Our last stop of the weekend before Stefan had to head back to Sacramento was Point No Point. No rarities were found, but had plenty of ANCIENT and MARBLED MURRELETS close by and the EARED GREBE was still in the area near the lighthouse. Overall a pretty good couple of days of birding with a life bird (the WHOOPER SWAN) for both of us.



Cheers and Good Birding;



Michael Fleming

Ballard, WA

michaellf AT myway.com

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