Dear Tweeters,
Today (16 February 2020) there was an Eared Grebe at March Point. The bird was foraging with a bunch of Horned Grebes and other birds, feeding on some slender fish that might have been Sand Launce. The flock was visible from the big, paved pullout on the Fidalgo Bay side--the one that offers a nice view of a long line of black railway oil tank cars. I can't remember the last year when I saw my first Skagit Eared Grebe before my first Western Grebe, but that's the kind of year it's been so far.
Mike Nelson got to see the Eared Grebe, and then he helped me to find a Western Sandpiper that was with a flock of Black-bellied Plover and a couple of Dunlin. This was in a muddy field a few hundred meters south of the Farmhouse Inn Restaurant, on the west side of LaConner-Whitney Road. This wintering flock is usually closer to the dwelling that is south of the restaurant, than it is to the restaurant itself, and that was the case today.
Finally, on Fir Island today, I saw an odd Mew Gull. It was exactly like all the other Mew Gulls in a big flock of them, except that the mantle was about the same color as that of an adult Ring-billed Gull. I had never seen albinism, leucism, or even dilute plumage in a Mew Gull before. This flock was about two hundred meters due north of the Game Range.
Yours truly,
Gary Bletsch
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