Dear Tweeters,

On October 27, there were about 10,000 Snow Geese on
Fir Island at Hayton Preserve (also called Snow Goose
Preserve, or "The Place Where People Gawk At Snow
Geese That Is West of Wylie Road," TPWPGASGTIWOWR for
short).

Among the Snow Geese were at least 2 CACKLING
GEESE--tiny geese with little stub-bills and dark
breasts. There was a third little goose that looked
like it might have been a bit larger than the two
Cacklers, but it had a paler breast; I don't know what
that one was.

A lady told me I should stay until sundown and watch
the geese fly off, but I wanted to move on and
continue birding.

As chance favored, I ended up at Skagit Regional
Airport at dusk, to witness another spectacle of
10,000 birds.

This was at a place that I call the Airport Ponds, at
the junction of Higgins Airport Way and Water Tank Rd,
a stone's throw NW of the W end of Peterson Road,
which is W of Burlington.

Sorry--the birds were EURASIAN STARLINGS--but it was a
spectacle I hope to see again soon. First a few
hundred birds swarmed in, followed by more and more
flocks of 500 to 1000. I reckon there were about
10,000 in all by nightfall.

They would fly right over my head, scaring the ducks
and coots on the ponds, veering and breaking up into
"small" flocks of 500 or so, then coalescing into
huge, irregular ovals.

I kept thinking of Passenger Pigeons.

By the way, these ponds are a good bet for waterfowl,
including early and late in season. Yesterday there
were mostly Mallards, with 1 American Wigeon, 2 or
more Northern Shovellers, at least 4 Gadwalls, 3
Lesser Scaups, 2 Ring-necked Ducks, and a drake Hooded
Merganser, plus 8 or so American Coots.

As the Starlings swarmed about, a Cooper's Hawk blew
in about two meters off the ground, calling as it
flew, then hurtling up to a treetop, where it
continued to call for a while.

The Starlings made an astonishing sound with their
wings, buzzing the waterfowl, causing some of them to
rise from the water and change ponds. All the while, I
stood there on the gravel roadside, seemingly
unnoticed by the birds.

Eventually, thousands of Starlings settled upon the
reedbeds that line the ponds. The reeds were black
with Starlings! It was possible to scope the
individual Starlings. One of them had white outer tail
feathers. I guess that sounds about right--one in
10,000.

The Skagit Regional Airport has a big network of
trails. This is the place where a Great Grey Owl
wintered in 1996. There is a small marsh near a
parking area, just off Ovenell Road. Visitors to
Skagit County might want to add some variety to their
birding trips to Samish Flats with a visit to the Airport.


Yours truly,

Gary Bletsch

near Lyman (Skagit County), Washington

garybletsch at yahoo.com


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