I'm in Oak Harbor and I've been bewteen here and Coupeville and Ft.
Casey/Ft. Ebey. Main roads are fine, with ice in spots. Side roads
are pretty icy but passable with good tires as long as you go slow.
Ft. Casey has been closed but the keystone spit is very birdy and West
Beach is very birdy. Lots of ducks, loons, and other ocean going
birds on the sound and in the bay near downtown Oak Harbor. Bring a
shovel and some cat litter as a precaution, in case you need to dig
yourself out of a parking spot.

Yesterday I went out to the west 90 and the Samish/Edison/Bow area.
The roads were AWFUL. Once I left Hwy 20 and headed north towards
Padilla Bay, the roads went from good on 20 to really bad. They
haven't plowed at all, or at least for several days and the road
consists of ruts where cars have driven with frozen piles of ice and
slush between the ruts. If you have to move over for another car you
have to venture into these ruts and in my 4-wheel drive with heavy
duty tires I was nervous about going into a ditch. Only the major
roads, like Chuckanaut Drive and Josh Wilson, have been plowed. The
rest are in the rutty, horrible condition. They should be better with
the warming weather within a couple of days as that ridge between the
ruts is able to get melted off. I didn't see any swans, which was so
strange for that area. The eagles were everywhere with literal flocks
of juveniles. They must be coming off the rivers. Lots of red
taileds and rough leggeds and short eared owls around the west 90
area. Lots of passerine flocks but I didn't get good looks at any of
them. Appeared to be finches based upon their flight bobby flight
pattern as well as the usual black birds and lots of sparrows around.
I did see several groups of birds that appeared to be waxwings but
they were always backlit so very hard to positively id.

Hope this helps!

Cathy Wise, Oak Harbor, cathy at wisenaturephotos.com
On Fri 12/26/08 3:08 PM , Dennis Paulson dennispaulson at comcast.net
sent:
Hello, tweets.
I have good friends from California coming up to visit relatives on
Bainbridge Island this week. I told them I would take them out birding
this weekend, but I'm wondering about conditions away from Seattle.
Seattle is bad enough, but I know there has been even more snow in all
directions from here.
Can anyone who has actually driven around in these lowland areas in
the last day tell me anything about the road conditions?
Dungeness/Port Angeles Port Townsend/Marrowstone Island Whidbey
Island Bellingham
Skagit/Samish Flats
I guess it wouldn't hurt to put this info on tweeters, as by this
time I'll bet others may be looking for something to do besides
staring out the windows of their home. Even with the rising
temperatures, the steep hills on our street are too slippery to be
safe. And now I just heard on the radio the potential for more snow
tonight!
Thanks!
----- Dennis Paulson 1724 NE 98 St. Seattle, WA 98115 206-528-1382