Hi all,

The past two Saturdays a friend and I have gone up to Skagit in search of
the snow geese, and failed to find them. No doubt this is due to relying
on newspaper accounts and not asking Tweeters first! We went down Fir
Island Road, we hit Wiley Slough and the other Dept of Fish & Wildlife
access points, including the one near Hayton reserve, we hiked several
miles along a dike...no geese. We asked nearly every birder we met if
they'd seen geese, but they all said "nope".

I wish I'd seen Doug Parrott's post here late Friday -- he saw them at the
end of Rawlins Road, where of course, we didn't go, because noboby ever
mentioned it in any of the research I did beforehand. Sigh. So I have a
question: if you've been up there recently and seen the geese, where did
you see them and what time of day was it? Is the Rawlins Road site a
fairly reliable spot?

On the plus side, we saw hundreds of Trumpeter Swans and at least one
Tundra, lots of wonderful raptors, and a Great Horned Owl poking its head
out of its nest thanks to some fellow birders with a scope (which I
believe was near the Hayton reserve access point but we went to so many
places I'm not 100% sure of that - it was just east of a parking lot by a
gravel-covered dike). As a fairly new birder, the owl was a life bird for
me, so despite the wild goose chase frustration, it was a great outing.

Anyway, we're bound and determined to try again -- any tips are most
welcome!

Thanks,
Alexandra (Alex) MacKenzie
Seattle
alexam at u.washington.edu