Dear Tweeters,

Yesterday (12-22-08) I braved (foolhardied?) some horrid driving conditions to bird Samish Island. It took over an hour of searching the wave-tossed waters of Samish Bay, but I managed to see an EARED GREBE that Joel Brady-Power had seen a couple of times recently. On the beach was an interesting assortment of "shorebirds": a hen Mallard, 2 Killdeer, a SANDERLING, an American Pipit, twenty Eurasian Starlings, and a Varied Thrush!

The Sanderling was a special bonus bird. These birds used to be easy to find in winter here, but now they are very scarce in Skagit County.

I drove out to March Point at dusk. It was very beautiful. A guy in a huge "monster truck" was having fun trying to get out of a drainage ditch along the road, managing only to gouge a huge rut in the mud and snow. Meanwhile, hundreds of American Wigeon, Northern Pintail, and Dunlin were foraging right on shore. There were two WESTERN SANDPIPERS with the Dunlin by Whitmarsh.

All this birding came at a price--it took me over an hour to go from Burlington to Lyman, a distance I usually traverse in twenty-five minutes!

Yours truly,

Gary Bletsch ? Near Lyman, Washington (Skagit County), USA ? garybletsch at yahoo.com ? ?