My visit to the Stanwood area yesterday wasn't until 5 p.m., so I
didn't have time to both look for Snowies (did see 4 - 3 were on the
same and to go knock on the door of the people on Boe Rd. who own the
field and sell the $10 hunting licenses/access rights. We did see 4
Snowies (after the shooting incident - see below) and 3 of them were
on the same perches as on Mon., plus one on the ground up on the dike
side to the NW of the metal sheds).

I'm heading back up today to take care of the Boe Rd. job and do some
more birding. If you are going up there today to try for Snowies, I
suggest either biting the bullet (not literally !) and going for a
permit, or going to Eide (like "Heidi" with a silent "H" !) Rd and
walking out on that part of the dike up to a half mile to check for
SNOW).

If any of the rest of you gain any more information as to what the
property owner wants us birders to do about going to the dike by
crossing his field before I report back, please let us Tweets know.
Thanks.

And do watch out for the hunters - we watched and heard one shoot into
a large group of roosting Snow Geese that were in the field across
from Thomle Rd. - he shot at them a good half dozen times, flushing
the whole lot and not visibly hitting any (at point blank range) - it
was quite disturbing and I'm not sure he was following code... We
were at least glad not to have been out in the field - it was at about
5:15 p.m.


Barb Deihl

North Matthews Beach - NE Seattle

barbdeihl at comcast.net