Dear Tweeters,

This was a good weekend for gull watching in Skagit County.

Yesterday (1-16-2011) there was a large flock of gulls at Hayton Preserve on Fir Island. Among hundreds of gulls were many Ring-billed and Glaucous-winged, plus some Mew. At least one and probably two HERRING GULLS were with them, plus a WESTERN GULL.

At Janicki Fields in Sedro-Woolley (along Cook Road) today (1-17-2011) was a flock of close to a hundred Glaucous-winged Gulls. With them were two GLAUCOUS GULLS and a HERRING GULL. This site has had Thayer's Gulls before. Actually, there was one gull that could have been a THGU, but it flew off. These gulls were coming and going.

It was very windy on the Samish Flats this afernoon, and I was leaving the area when I decided to stop at the East Ninety to check for Savannah Sparrows. There wasn't even a Song Sparrow there, but a GYRFALCON was a reasonable consolation prize for the missing sparrows. This bird was on the ground when I saw it. It was by the west bank of the Samish River. This was at about 3:30 PM. At about 3:35, it flew to a perch at the farm at the north end of Bay View-Edison Road. As the Gyrfalcon had taken off, a Short-eared Owl took to the wing and tried to get into an aerial interaction, but the falcon showed no interest. It had a full crop. A flock of several hundred Mallards stayed hunkered down, just a few feet below the flying falcon. Maybe they saw the full crop, too. A couple of Northern Harriers also hassled the falcon as it flew to the perch.

Of interest yesterday at dusk was a flock of about 8000 SNOW GEESE. They flew over Bay View State Park in the last of the light. I do not remember seeing Snow Geese landing out on Padilla Bay before. I always think of them as spending the night on Skagit Bay. On my drive home from Bay View, I found a remaining 1000 or so Snow Geese still foraging in the darkness along Maiben Road, between I-5 and Bay View Ridge.

On a personal note, I was able to add a new species to my yard list today. Species number 139 was a Lesser Scaup. The floodwaters that are creeping toward my property at the moment do bring with them their benefits.

Yours truly,

Gary Bletsch?Near Lyman, Washington (Skagit County), USA?garybletsch at yahoo.com?Mentre che li occhi per la fronda verde
ficcava ?o s? come far suole
chi dietro a li uccellin sua vita perde, lo pi? che padre mi dicea: ?Figliuole,
vienne oramai, ch? ?l tempo che n?? imposto
pi? utilmente compartir si vuole?.??