I assume many people will be looking for the adult Wood Sandpiper in
the coming days and I wanted to stress how important it is to be on
good behavior. The flooded field is part of The Nature Conservancy's
Farming For Wildlife project which does a great job providing
important habitat for migrating shorebirds. There are currently
several fields in the Skagit area, but this is the only one that is
viewable from a public road. For this reason, and due to a
cooperative land owner not minding the idea of potentially large
numbers of people looking for the bird, I was able to report the Wood
Sandpiper in the first place, but I don't want to end up regretting
that decision.

The field is about half a mile south of the intersection of Samish
Island Rd & Bayview-Edison Rd on the Samish Flats, on the west side of
the road. There is plenty of room on the shoulder to park. Please
park well off the road so you aren't blocking traffic. Probably more
important is that when standing around scoping the field, please stay
well off the road itself. It's a busy road both for cars and the
local farmers. In the couple hours we were there today we had at
least half a dozen cars stop to ask what we were looking at. This is
a great opportunity to interact with the general public, but we don't
want to leave a bad impression which I'm worried will happen if people
forget their surroundings and wander into the road. So please, pay
attention to where you are and if you see anyone else out in the road
or doing any potentially dangerous or disruptive behavior, let them
know.

A couple photos are on my Flickr site. Don't expect views anything
close to this though. The closest to the road that it was today was
about 300 meters, with about 350 meters being more typical. With luck
you can get identifiable views, especially if you happen to see it in
flight. Twice while I was there it flew off to an area near the dike
south of the West 90 WDFW access, but after an hour or two returned to
this field. I was in the field itself doing surveys which is why I
was able to see it more closely, but the landowner is not open to the
general public entering the field. Early next week the part of the
field close to the road should become flooded as well, so if it
happens to stick around a few days, better views may become possible.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rjm284/

TNC's Farming For Wildlife website:

http://www.nature.org/ourinitiatives/regions/northamerica/unitedstates/washington/explore/farming-for-wildlife.xml

Hopefully the Wood Sandpiper will stay a few more days so others can
enjoy seeing it!

Thanks,
Ryan Merrill
Kirkland