John Tubbs and I birded Samish flats and Skagit/Fir Island on Monday.
Needless to say it was a beautiful day.



We started at the "Harris's Sparrow spot" near Edison but didn't find the
bird. That's my second try recently so perhaps the bird has moved on.or I'm
just unlucky.. We did see numerous GOLDEN-CROWNED SPARROWS and SONG SPARROWS
in the area. In the area from Edison to West 90 we saw 10-12 NORTHERN
HARRIERS, 2 ROUGH-LEGGED HAWKS, a couple of dozen BALD EAGLES, 1 PEREGRINE
FALCON and 2 SHORT-EARED OWLS, and a handful of RED-TAILED HAWKS including a
stunning dark morph that we briefly thought might be a Harlan's Hawk. We
scoped Samish Bay for a few minutes and found 2 EURASIAN WIGEON among the
thousands of AMERICAN WIGEON and NORTHERN PINTAIL, a few dozen distant
BRANT, several distant BLACK-BELLIED PLOVERS and hundreds of DUNLIN flying
around. Just south of West 90 we saw one AMERICAN KESTREL. From Samish
Island we scoped out a PACIFIC LOON, RED-THROATED LOON, COMMON GOLDENEYE,
SURF SCOTER and thousands of WIGEON, MALLARD and N PINTAIL.



We made a few stops on Fir Island. We drove out on Rawlins Road but the
Snow Geese weren't there. We drove to the end of Rawlins and walked up onto
the dike where we saw yet more NORTHERN HARRIERS. We made a few stops along
Maupin Road from which we saw the large flocks SNOW GEESE in fields to the
east. Yes, there were more NORTHERN HARRIER in the fields including one
feeding on a large bird.perhaps gull? We thought that was odd. We found
several groups of TRUMPETER SWANS but didn't find any Tundra's.



We took a nice walk out on the dike at the Game Range where we saw lots of
sparrows (WHITE-CROWNED, GOLDEN-CROWNED, SONG, but no surprises), two MERLIN
flying together, 2 COOPER'S HAWKS, 1 NORTHERN SHRIKE and various other usual
suspects including RUBY-CROWNED KINGLETS, 2 BROWN CREEPERS.and more NORTHERN
HARRIERS. Over the course of the day we must have seen 20-25 Harrier.



Our last stop was a the Stanwood Sewage Treatment Ponds where we added some
additional ducks (N SHOVELER, LESSER SCAUP, RUDDY DUCKS including some males
that appeared to be moving into breeding plumage, as well as a MARSH WREN
and LINCOLN'S SPARROW.



John kept the official tally but I think we ended the day with 60 species
for the day.



Regards,



Mason Flint

Bellevue, WA