Hello all,

I did a census of the birds of Drayton Harbor (the body of water between Blaine and Semiahmoo) with another student (Tracy) today and saw some good birds. One of the first birds we saw in Blaine was the SNOWY OWL that has been hanging out for a awhile now at the marina. Our last bird of the day was the KING EIDER, which is still hanging out in his usual spot. In between these two highlights we saw most of the regular water birds with >20 CANVASBACK and >15 EARED GREBES being the highlights, the weather notwithstanding.

The Snowy Owl experience: As we were walking from one site to another we basically walked right under the Snowy Owl, which was hanging out on an overhanging wire. I just happened to look up and was like, "Oh! There is a Snowy Owl!" Really weird/cool. I was surprised how exposed the owl was, especially because he was hanging out over a pretty busy area with a guy on a forklift (who seemed either oblivious or used to the owl) going back and forth right underneath him.

The other weird thing we saw today was six individual rollover accidents between Ferndale and Blaine on I-5, which I assume were the fault of black ice. Ouch!

Good Migrations,

Houston Flores
Bellingham, WA
houstonflores AT hotmail.com
_________________________________________________________________
Type your favorite song.? Get a customized station.? Try MSN Radio powered by Pandora.
http://radio.msn.com