This morning at the Hayton Reserve off Fir Island Road we thought we were
seeing a smallish flock of snow geese in the distance toward the farmhouse.
We had observed a few dozen snow geese flying overhead heading somewhere,
so we knew snow geese were definitely around. When we looked through our
scope, however, we saw that these snow geese were fakes -- perhaps
cardboard cut outs?! Hard to tell -- is it a snow goose art
installation?? There were two groups of "snow geese" - and two
individuals walking from one group to the other -- except of course none
were actually moving, because it was a three dimensional still life. A
hunter we met there took a look through our scope and was surprised by this
sight. He commented that hunters are not allowed to leave decoys
unattended for more than an hour, and also the fake snow geese appeared to
be on the private property of the farm. I guess we were seeing maybe 100
decoys out there on the field. Can anyone help explain what we saw?

We saw a large group of very alive snow geese mixed with some swans just
off the west side of the freeway as we headed south on I-5 back to Seattle.
We wonder if these birds have figured out that the hunters aren't going
to be able to get at birds right next to the freeway, so maybe it's pretty
noisy, but it's also pretty safe!

Emily Winstrom
Bellevue, Washington
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