January 31 - Samish Flats

This morning, I drove to Mount Vernon, as Marty had work at the USDA office on College Way, and left for the afternoon to go birding on the Samish Flats.

There have been sporadic reports of a Snowy Owl and a Gyrfalcon in the area, so I would look at each raptor on the utility poles, but saw only Red-tailed and Rough-legged Hawks, Peregrines and Kestrels.  And Eagles!  There are a lot of Bald Eagles in the area.

I stopped to scan a few of the Trumpeter Swan flocks, attempting to find some Tundra Swans mixed in, but didn’t find any.

I drove past the “East 90” eBird site on Bayview-Edison Road, and saw there were a couple of photographers out in the WDFW area.

So, I stopped and scoped the fields from the road and saw a Short-eared Owl perched about 50 yards beyond one of the ‘shutterbugs’.

Yes, that's an Owl!

So, I walked out, passing a flock of White-crowned Sparrows and a few Marsh Wrens.  I spent about an hour there, watching not one but two owls coursing across the fields.

There were a couple of Peregrines, as well as the ubiquitous Bald Eagles.

Trees full of Bald Eagles

Finally, I drove over through Edison, a charming little berg along the south side of Samish Bay,

then over to the mouth of the Samish River.  I hadn’t been here for thirty years, and the place was a little more time-worn than I’d remembered.

Samish River mouth

There were a few ‘fixer-uppers’ below the bridge,

A boat is a hole in the water, that you just pour money through . . .

a few heron and swans,

and – of course – views of the ubiquitous Bald Eagles.

"Ubiquitous" means they are everywhere!

I left the flats when I figured that I wouldn’t find any more bird species, but I was wrong:

Jungle Fowl

Then, I headed back to Mount Vernon, arriving at 4 p.m., and waited until Marty was finished with her work at 4:30, then we checked into the Hampton Inn in Burlington, and went to supper at the Sakura restaurant across the parking lot from the motel.  Not a bad supper…

Trumpeter Swan Field eBird Checklist is Here

East 90 eBird Checklist is Here

Samish River mouth eBird Checklist is Here