The past few days, a large group of Trumpeter Swans has been spending
the evening hours in the Snohomish River behind my house. Presumably
they're taking advantage of the open water here while their usual
spot(s) are iced over. Today a Sandhill Crane flew in with them. After
a few minutes in the river the group took off and headed south,
presumably to roost at Bob Heirman.

I'm assuming this is one of the birds I heard about a month ago in the
same area during another cold spell.

The low water level has created some temporary shorebird habitat and
yesterday I found a group of 4 Least Sandpipers among several dozen
Killdeer. There appear to be relatively few inland Least Sandpiper
records during winter in eBird.

Josh Adams
Cathcart, WA