Dear Tweeters,

Today (1-14-12) there was a male RUSTY BLACKBIRD on the Butler Flats (Skagit County). This bird gave me good, close looks at a farm where there are usually some blackbirds. This is on the north side of the Kelleher Road, just west of the north end of District Line Road. The bird was foraging with Brewer's Blackbirds, two male Brown-headed Cowbirds, a few Starlings, and a few Red-winged Blackbirds, along with a Golden-crowned Sparrow (which species is often found there as well).

You can recognize that you're at the right spot if you see two lines of cows, east and west, munching their provender, poking their heads through the bars, with a narrow paved tractor-way separating them. It is best to approach this spot by car, driving westwards on Kelleher, so you can pull over on the north side of the road, where there is just barely enough room to sort of get over.

I spent much of the late morning at Samish Island, but could not find any Redpolls; there were a few Siskins in the area where the Redpolls have been seen, plus some Bushtits. Near Blau Oyster was a flock of at least 25 Eurasian Collared Doves, one of the biggest flocks I've seen in the US. At Samish Island Public Beach, there were lots of water birds, including an EARED GREBE and at least 20 Oldsquaw.

Back on Samish Flats, single Cackling and Greater White-fronted Geese could be found among large waterfowl concentrations in the fields. Eurasian Wigeon were here and there in the big American Wigeon flocks. A stop on Sullivan Road was fairly slow, but there was an adult HERRING GULL with some Glaucous-wingeds. Behind the bakery at Edison was a male "Sideways Teal," as I like to call the Common or Eurasian Green-winged Teal.

I whiled away some time at the tip of March Point in hopes of Snow Buntings, but none appeared. A lone SANDERLING did show up all by itself on the beach here at low tide. I also saw two Black Oystercatchers a few hundred meters south of the point, on the Padilla Bay side.

It was a good day for shorebirds--earlier, I'd seen nine Long-billed Dowitchers at Big Indian Slough, and smallish flocks of Dunlin could be seen here and there, besides Killdeer--which have been oddly scarce everywhere I've been birding of late.

Yours truly,

Gary Bletsch

?Near Lyman, Washington (Skagit County), USA?garybletsch at yahoo.com?"Nun," sagte ich, "wenn ich ein Taugenichts bin, so ist's gut, so will ich in die Welt gehen, und mein Glueck machen." Und eigentlich war mir das recht lieb, denn es war mir kurz vorher selber eingefallen, auf Reisen zu gehen, da ich die Goldammer, welche im Herbst und Winter immer betruebt an unserm Fenster sang: "Bauer, miet' mich, Bauer, miet' mich!" nun in der schoenen Fruehlingszeit wieder ganz stolz und lustig vom Baume rufen hoerte: "Bauer, behalt' deinen Dienst!"