Alerted by both Bryan La Coma and Becky Rosencrans, I drove down to the Bayview-Edison Road on the Samish Flats last evening. Due to the on-going flooding from the Samish River, huge areas of the agricultural fields on Samish are now underwater. As a result, Chuckanut Drive, Farm to Market Road and Bayview-Edison are all closed to traffic. The only way to Samish Island is through Edison.
Due to the geography of this area, most of the river overflow eventually goes west towards the dikes on Padilla Bay. So the fields by the West 90 and the T eventually fill up like a bath tub.
As a result, the voles that live in these areas have been forced to vacant their winter burrows and runways by the encroaching water. Even the burrows built into the roadsides are eventually inundated.
So last evening, there were literally hundreds of voles (and Becky reports thousands on Samish Island Road) running around on the paved roads, swimming in the flood waters, climbing up into roadside vegetation (including blackberries), up fenceposts, walking across the floating vegetation and huddled together in groups of 5, 10 and even 20 individuals. We saw small clusters of them trying to hide in any type of available hole or depression formed between the asphalt and roadside gravel.
I have been looking at hawks on the Samish for over 35 years but this was the first time that I had seen this type of event. Bryan reports that hawks and ravens are picking them off in numbers. We saw a Great Blue Heron hunting them, if you can call it that, by simply walking along the roadside. I talked to another person who had observed gulls swooping down and eating them too.
So while there is a food extravaganza for raptors and other birds going on right now, the areas down by the west 90 will be largely devoid of voles for the rest of the winter. It is going to be interesting to see how this will impact the distribution of rodent-eating hawks this season.

Bud Anderson
Falcon Research Group
Box 248
Bow, WA 98232 USA
(360) 757-1911 (office)
(206) 962-7838 (cell)
bud at frg.org