Happy holidays to all-

About thirty trumpeter swans have been hanging out in a field on the corner of Swan Trail Slough and Homeacres Road in Snohomish. I saw them coming home yesterday, in the beautiful low December sunlight, brilliant white in contrast to the thin grey low clouds. My neighbor says they've been there a few days. I worry about them, since the field has always been planted in corn for the fall agritourist season, then opened for hunting slots in the winter when the ducks show up. I doubt the owner designates or enforces the type of shot used, so I worry there is enough residual lead to be a problem. There was duck hunting going on already this year. Seems high time I hired someone to dig up some reed canarygrass and plant corn to help out.

District 6 is far more backed up with water than I ever remember. Along 60th and Homeacres, I spied a lot of ducks- I'll have to bring the scope and see if I can identify them.

The ring-necked pheasants are still out back in the gardens. Today we counted 8f, 2 m, with one of the males a really large bird. I can't get back to see them because the walker they gave me after hip surgery really needs little 4-wheel drive tires to make it over uneven ground, and I'm not really mobile or balanced enough yet (the back 40 has been declared off limits by the watchful assistant at this time).

I can walk down the road, though, and am supposed to keep active to help heal. It's a really slow process, and none too comfortable, so the wildlife watching is a saving grace while I'm creeping along. I saw a belted kingfisher in the snags along the river, found two old hummingbird nests in the alders along the road, and have sighted the bald eagles working on their nest in the cottonwood tree. I would like to get new photos of the eagles: some we got from last summer show that one of them has a really peculiar beak. I will get around to posting photos and see if a Tweeter may know what the beak issue is. My neighbor found a beak beneath the tree last summer, and didn't realize you're not supposed to have these things (she put it back). That is when I learned about the urban myth of eagles shedding beaks.

The owl pair is working from a stand of alder and cottonwood by the front fence. I could see them flying quietly back and forth in the moonlight. The stand volunteered after the dike breached there in the 1996 flood. I've seen coyotes disappear into it, hawks perched on the edges, and even rabbits and raccoons. When I've got the John Deere walker rigged up, I'll totter out and see if I can find a nest.

I saw an article in the Times that the Nisqually WR boardwalk is open and wheelchair accessible. Grateful for accommodations for the disabled, I will plan a trip with my urban roadster of a walker and report back. I have kayaked the Nisqually reach every winter when the steelhead are in to watch the sea lions rob the nets on the river. The bird life is a big attraction, but it is one of the few times these big, sometimes ferocious animals are distracted enough for us to hang out and watch up close. I was not the only one cheering the recent ruling prohibiting the shooting of sea lions on the Columbia- it ain't their fault the fish are all gone.

Happy and fruitful birding in 2011-

Monica

Snohomish, WA