I finally had a free day to go look for the Whooper Swan. I got up to the church in Conway about 10:20 a.m. and looked at 6 Trumpeters digging in the mud next to the church and didn't see it. This is where Kathy Andrich saw it on Mon. I continued north on Skagit City Road about 2-300 yards and saw another group of 6 swans feeding in a field with a car parked there. The Whooper was there about 100 yards away with excellent views. I got some photos thru the spotting scope. It was a nice sunny morning and the yellow on the bill showed up very well and it did come to a point. It looked just like the illustration in Sibley's book. I had seen a few flocks of swans in fields on the drive up. Further north about 1 mile from the Whooper and past Moore Road, there was a humongous flock of Snow Geese and hundreds of swans around the edges of the geese. There must have been at least 10,000 Snow Geese. I did scope the 2-300 swans and found a few Tundras. I also found one Trumpeter with a!
blue neck band with P732 on it.

I spent the rest of my time birding along Dry Slough Road to Fir Island, then to the Hayden Preserve, Skagit Game Range. I saw a number of Bald Eagles, Northern Harriers and Red-tailed Hawks at the Hayden Preserve and a Peregrine Falcon on the way to the game range. Then back to the church area about 2 p.m. and I found the Whooper again at the first farm north of the church. It was digging in the mud and you had to look close to see the yellow on the bill. I then went down the Conway to Stanwood road to the Big Ditch Access area. There were a lot of Bald Eagles, Red-tailed Hawks, Northern Harrier and one American Kestrel, one Sharp-shinned and one Cooper's Hawk at the Big Ditch. My last stop was at the Stanwood Sewage Treatment Ponds where there were hundreds of Northern Shoveler as well as good numbers of Ruddy Ducks, Gadwall, Ring-necked Ducks, Northern Pintail, Green-winged Teal, American Wigeon and of course, Mallards.

It was a very rewarding trip on a nice day.

Hugh Jennings
Bellevue, WA
hughbirder AT earthlink.net