Joel Brady-Power and I had a great day birding Skagit in the sun
today. Early on off Rosario Beach were a couple hundred Red-throated
Loons and two adult Thayer's Gulls. We had great views of the female
TUFTED DUCK on Lake Erie, along with about 80 Ring-necked Ducks. A
lone Bonaparte's Gull was flying out over Similk Bay. March Point
yielded an Eared Grebe, the continuing female Black Scoter, and an
adult Western Gull.

The bird of the day was along Bayview-Edison Road on the Samish Flats
- a male MALLARD X NORTHERN PINTAIL hybrid mixed in with thousands of
wigeon, mallard and pintail. I first noticed and identified it while
it was sleeping, but it took staring at it for fifteen minutes before
it lifted its head for half a second, showing off its blue bill.
After another ten minutes a male Eurasian Wigeon ran over to peck it,
causing it to finally wake up and briefly run away to a new spot where
it resumed sleeping. It had clean gray sides but a much lighter brown
breast than a Mallard. The head was green but was a greener shade
than the green of a Mallard, lacking the blue tones. It had a white
ring around the neck like a Mallard, but there was also a white spur
going up the side of the neck like that on a pintail, though not as
long.

There was also a Long-billed Dowitcher and two male American X
Eurasian Wigeon hybrids in the field and a first-cycle Herring Gull
just to the north. In the slough at Edison there were two EURASIAN
TEAL. On Allen West Road just west of Chuckanut Drive was a
first-cycle Glaucous Gull. Single adult Thayer's Gulls were at the
park in Allen and at the ponds at Higgins Airport Way & Watertank Road
near the airport.

Two Hairy Woodpeckers and a White-throated Sparrow were on Valentine
Road. No sign of the Blue Jay in a quick visit. The Snow Goose flock
was along Mann Road. Mixed in were the wintering adult Blue Goose and
seven Taverner's Cackling Geese. We spent the rest of the day at the
Game Range where there was an American Bittern, two Great Horned Owls,
and at least two Short-eared Owls.

We ended the day with 104 species.

Good birding,
Ryan Merrill
Kirkland, WA