We're very amatuer birders in the upper Snohomish River Estuary on Ebey Slough. We're enjoying an increasing number of trumpeter swans in flight and in cornfields around the Snohomish River Valley. In 2007, a pair was seen in our area, and now it's up to 2 dozen. Many were visible from Highway 9 heading toward Clearview from Marshlands Road the last few days. I got photos of some young birds, still gray colored.

On Wednesday night, we watched and listened to courting behavior of two Great Horned Owls across the river in tall cottonwood trees backlit by light glow from Everett. It was a chilly night here, so we bundled up and stood huddled in the snow. The male would fly from tree to tree calling; he retained that low, rhythmic call. The female tended to wait on branches until the mail approaches, and varied from cat-like cries to a higher pitched "hoo" series. We could see them bowing toward each other on the branches. Then they would fly to another branch and continue the same process. We've put up owl perches in the field and they are heavily used in the fall and winter. We have lots of owls around here- I've seen short-eared, great horned, and barn owls. After the January 2009 flood, Snohomish County Roads scraped up the corn and pumpkin debris from the road into a 5 foot pile; we drove up on this the first night we could get home and saw eight owls sitting on the pile, all with rodent catches.

We also sighted our first varied thrushes (two) at a feeder put out to help the birds weathering the storm. We usually don't feed, but leave the wildlife to their own since I've done a lot of habitat restoration over the last ten years. But the cold, snow and wind is an unpleasant surprise for a lot of these birds, and we're trying to help them along.

WDFW did a release of ring-necked pheasants, but those won't last long - between the eagles, coyotes, hawks, and owls - oh, and occasional hunters - they disappear pretty quickly. Neither do the dumped chickens we get occasionally (the urban chicken trend gone wrong, I think). We have a pheasant hen in the yard- we'll see how long she lasts. A pair survived from 2005-2006, and even nested in the summer of 2006, but disappeared after the December 2006 flood.

Monica