After neither seeing nor hearing any Short-eared Owls at West 90 in
the late afternoon on Wed. (others reported seeing one), and after
seeing Tim Brennan's report of seeing a few at the Samish T in late
afternoon a week ago Thur. (I think), I decided that, the promise of
"sun breaks" yesterday might make it a good day for me to check out
the Samish area again, for the owls. It was and I went and I had
success, to the tune(s) of four!

From (about 4:15 - 5 p.m.), at West 90 and near the Samish "T", I
encountered Great Blue Herons, Red-tailed Hawks, Bald Eagles and some
Northern Harriers, but no Shortears. As I was only partially chilled
at that point, I decided to stay (on the path) at West 90 until dark,
hoping for a repeat of a moving experience I had had in December. I
wasn't disappointed. At around 5:05, I caught sight of one SEOW out
to the S/SW where there was also some ongoing harrier hunting. Then,
about 5 minutes later, as the sun was making a meagre but colorful
appearance against the dark gray-blue clouds near the horizon and the
fields were getting to the point at which my binoculars could barely
help my eyes make out bird forms out in the darkening marsh, and
coinciding with the time that the hunters were coming in for the day,
out popped 4 SEOW. That they are light-colored was a big help. For a
minute or two I followed one as it flitted about wa-a-a-y out there,
but it wasn't long before it was just me and my binocs playing hide &
seek with all 4 of the owls. They were silent at first, but, after
maybe five/ten minutes, I was treated to a variety of barking sounds,
mostly similar to 2 "bark calls" on the Cornell Macaulay Library CD
"Voices of North American Owls" - # 87+#88 on Disc #2. #87 is
described to be "bark call by a perched owl near a communal roost and
#88 some "bark calls in flight during antagonistic encounters between
hunting birds in winter". #87-like barks were short and pretty much
one-note. The main sounds that were like the last ones in the #88
segment, I describe as being a "e-e-e-YIP", if that makes any sense!
The calls continued well into the time it was too dark for me to see
the birds anymore, stopping at around 5:35.

For the first 15 min. of this "sounding", the Northern Harriers mixed
in their high-pitched whistles, and after the NOHA quieted down and
seemed to stop hunting, other sounds started taking over, all around
me, as the Shortears continued with intermittent bark calls. Flocks
of ducks, blackbirds, dunlin, swans and possibly some geese, plus
innumerable groups of other birds flew into the marsh and the
surrounding trees and brush. There was a constant stream of birds,
even after I went to my car. It sounded kind of like car traffic
zipping by, only it was a good deihl more pleasant, and somewhat
breathier - little wind events, but not mussing my hair (just messing
with my ears!). I was right out in the middle of a wild, honkin'-_ _
_ night-roost flyover! I kept thinking some of them were going to fly
into me!

Next time I'm bundling up more, setting up a camping chair and, with a
hot coffee in my thermos, and my optics by my side, will see what the
sunset brings. By the way, the cold breeze that was noticeable at the
start of sunset, was down to close to zero for the rest of it - yeah,
no wind - it was nice. And I never heard a gunshot, even though there
were about 6 hunters out there.

As for other birds seen in the area, I was pretty focused on the owls,
but did notice that I didn't see very many species or high numbers of
anything in the 3 hours I was in the Samish Flats - no Dunlin in the
fields, no Peregrines, no Merlins, no Rough-legged Hawks, a small
number of swans, no Snow Geese, a smaller number of Northern Harriers
than I've seen out there in recent weeks, and only 3 Red-tailed
Hawks. A few adult Bald Eagles were perched on the utility poles
where the RLHA and RTHA usually are. I'm wondering if this was true
earlier that day - a quiet day for birds, as Gary Bletsch remarked in
his post about the Skagit area.

'Til next time...


Barb Deihl

North Matthews Beach - Seattle

barbdeihl at comcast.net










As for other birds