Tweeters,
I had a day off yesterday so I birded the Skagit area. My goals were
Northern Waterthrush, Short-eared Owl photos and to get my Skagit list over
100. Mission accomplished!

I first heard the NORTHERN WATERTHRUSH calling near the camo blind at Wylie
Slough. After about 30 minutes of waiting it finally came into the open and
I was able to get some photos. This was my fourth try for the bird there,
so it was very satisfying. The photo even turned out pretty good. I added
4 county birds at Wylie, the other three were BROWN CREEPER, PURPLE FINCH
and HAIRY WOODPECKER. That got me to 98 for the county.

I then ran to Lake Erie to try for some missing county ducks. I added
RING-NECKED DUCK, COMMON MERGANSER, HOODED MERGANSER, BUFFLEHEAD, & LESSER
SCAUP. Nothing rare there today, but I got my county list to 103.

I tried Rawlings Road next for Short-eared Owls, but it seemed pretty quiet.
Rather than wait for them to show up I decided to head to West 90 which has
always been my best Short-ear spot. West 90 didn't dissapoint. I got there
around 3pm and walked out a short way and immediately started seeing them.
One SHORT-EARED OWL was sitting calmly in the field and despite being
backlit the photos turned out OK. Eventually, there were as many as five
SHORT-EARED OWLS flying around. The lighting was a little cloudier than
forecast, but there were some sun breaks so I got both sunny and cloudy
photos.

After it got dark things countinued to be interesting. I was standing in
the parking lot looking at my photos and large groups of ducks started
flying in to roost in the fields. They came in by the thousands, and much
like dunlin couldn't really decide where to land. They also seemed to be
doing some evasive maneuvers and I think I saw a couple of falcons shoot
through the flocks. At times it looked just like a "murmuration". I was
thinking it was "Murmuration of Mallards", however, from what I could tell
90% of them seemed to be Wigeons. So I decided it was a "WHIRLWIND of
WIGEONS". Whatever it was, it was quite amazing. And the racket even
flushed a couple of RING-NECKED PHEASANTS, so I got another county bird in
the processs.

I almost got too many photos from the day, so it was hard to pick the best,
but I tried. I had the same problem on Thursday at Damon Point, so there
are lots of Snowy Owl pictures online as well. I'm sure I will be
recropping a reprocessing and shuffling a lot. Pictures are here:

https://picasaweb.google.com/102009338713990315115/PicturesForSharing

...and a neat photo of a SEOW mid-air talon lock. Not sure if they are
fighting or flirting.

https://picasaweb.google.com/102009338713990315115/Other#5681948500524312898

Randy Bjorklund
Federal Way, WA