Tag Archives: Skagit County

Ken’s Skagit Trip 2018

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A field of Snow Geese(Click photo to enlarge)

Saturday Dec 1 Ken Brown led a group of 20 ABCers on his annual first-weekend-of-December trip to the Skagit and Samish Flats and surrounding areas. Weather smiled on us and we had a dry, not too cold and not very windy day. We met at the Smoky Point rest stop at 7:30 AM and on leaving took the next exit going north to take a back roads route through Snohomish County to get the Fir Island. The order of cars was much out of the ordinary. Diane, Fay and the Willettes usually bring up the rear of any caravan we take on trips, but this trip Diane, Faye and Laurel rode at the front of the line in Ken’s car, and Bruce, Karen, Terry and I took the caboose position. Bruce did all the eBirding for the trip and added the equivalent of an anther expert trip leader, helping make our intimate 5-car, twenty person entourage more manageable.

Male Northern Harrier

We started the day with a bang. At a stop at a home with several feeders Ken and a few others located a White-throated Sparrow under a cedar tree, and we watched good flocks of sparrows. On the next few miles of roads large blackbird flocks gave us chances to look them over hoping for a Rusty Blackbird, and while doing this we spotted a Northern Shrike immature bird perched unusually high on a conifier tree. A Cooper’s Hawk gave perched and fly-by looks, and Trumpeter Swans and Snow Geese flew around. We located at least 2 late-season Brown-headed Cowbirds in one of the blackbird flocks, and then headed for Bow Road in Stanwood.

The Cooper’s Hawk that flew by at an early stop.

This is a dead end road with large wet fields near a dyke, and we spent some time there. We found our first Rough-legged Hawks, a dark Red-tailed Hawk, ? Harlan’s (really far away and tough to be sure so we left is as just a dark morph/Harlan’s, a flock of pipits, an American Kestrel that fooled us flying in doing its best Peregrine imitation, along with eagles, swans, geese, a field full of Killdeer and a few Wilson’s Snipe.

A likely 3rd year Bald Eagle with the Osprey-like head coloration.

A surprisingly quick porcelain stop in Stanwood (it takes time for a line of 20 to make it through) and we were off to Wylie Slough. There we targeted the four rarities that have been being seen there. A disconcerting search by the Sherriff and lots of help for a 2-year old presumed drowned at the boat ramp a day earlier made access awkward, but we managed to find the Black Phoebe first by the boat ramp, then later at the other end of the slough. We failed however in an energetic search for Swamp Sparrow, American Tree Sparrow and Northern Waterthrush. We managed a good list though, an had really good looks at male and female Northern Harriers, lots of Bald Eagles, Cooper’s Hawk, Red-tailed Hawk, along with large numbers of American Robins, Cedar Waxwings and various finches that were devouring a really good crop of fruit from the trees beside the dyke trail.

March Wrens kept us busy hoping one of the birds moving in the bushes would be one of the rarities we sought at Wylie Slough.

A quick stop at Hayden Preserve added Long-billed Dowicher, Greater Yellowlegs, and Least Sandpipers (these by only a few observers) along with big numbers of dabbling ducks.

Black Phoebe

We spent the rest of the afternoon driving through the Skagit anmayd then the Samish Flats looking primarily for raptors. We had good numbers of RLHA, RTHA, and BAEA, along with remarkable numbers of Northern Harriers. Amazingly we did not find any Peregrine Falcons nor Merlin, leaving us with a surprising one-falcon species day (American Kestrel). We planned to end the day at the West 90 looking for Short-eared Owls, and a couple of us got a brief glimpse of one SEOW flying very far away back toward the East 90. As darkness fell, Ken hurried us over to the East 90 curve where we manage to get off the road enough to get out and look for the owls. Just as light failed us Bruce spotted one SEOW fairly distant, but everyone got looks. As we watched that owl, another appeared much closer and proceeded to fly back and forth, before flying right at us and crossing the road quite nearby. A great end to a very nice day.

Numbers:
79 Species of birds
14 species of waterfowl
6 species of shorebirds
Many thousands of Snow Geese
3 Short-eared Owls
0 Peregrine Falcons and Merlins, so 1 species of Falcon.
19 tired and happy ABCers who enjoyed another of Ken’s patented trips.
Good Birding.
Ed Pullen

2017 Annual Skagit Trip

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A tiny part of large flock of near in Snow geese, not the one “blue goose”.

Sunday Dec 3 Ken Brown organized and led the annual Skagit and Samish Flat’s birding trip. This year so many ABC’ers wanted to come that he spit the trip into two groups to avoid a long caravan in traffic on the flats. The first group met Ken at the Smoky Point Rest Stop at 7:30, and the second group met shortly after about 8 AM and Ed Pullen along with lots of other strong birders headed out to follow Ken’s route.

First we got off on the first exit north of the rest area, Exit 208, and went left through Silvana and then left onto Norman Rd. Shortly after getting onto Norman Road at a house with several feeders a nice variety of feeder birds were seen, including a White-throated sparrow by just a few of us when it showed very briefly. A Sharp-shinned hawk was fanning its tail to dry in a nearby tree, and a merlin perched on a distant tree top. Further down Norman Rd was our second falcon of the day, an American kestrel, as well as several groups of Trumpeter swans and lots of fly-over Snow geese.

Prairie Falcon on Boe Rd

Where Norman Rd intersects Marine Drive, we went directly across to Boe Road where we had great looks at a Prairie falcon, first located by Bruce Labar, as well as American Kestrel and Merlin, bringing Ken’s group to 4 falcons (Ed’s would get Peregrine later, but Ken’s group had one in travel), as well as American Pipits, both common buteos Red-tailed and Rough-legged hawks, a Cooper’s hawk Ken located tucked in a distant tree, lots of Bald eagles, Western meadowlarks, as well as more and larger flocks of Snow geese overhead.

Subsequent stops at Thomie and Edie Roads yielded more of the same, and in Ed’s group the Willet’s (back care as always) brought us back to see a Northern Shrike.

Northern Shrike in the thorny brambles

From here we headed north to Skagit County, traveling on back roads up to Fir Island. At Wylie Slough we found 6 Greater yellowlegs, Ed saw 12 Black-bellied plover fly by, and we sorted through large flocks of Pine siskins hoping for a Common redpoll, and though Ken found one brief look at a likely possibility, none of us could pull a redpoll out of the hyperactive flocks of 250+ siskins.

Our group at Wylie Slough

At Hayton Reserve we were treated to an estimated 8-10,000 Dunlin in a huge flock on the high-tide remaining mudflats. Two peregrines put on a show dueling for apparent territorial rights to the flock, while the Dunlin dazzled with evasive flocking behavior. A good variety of ducks, a Harlan’s Red-tailed hawk, 12 Greater yellowlegs and about 50 Long-billed dowitchers added to our day list.

It was getting late so we skipped the rest of the dike access areas on Fir Island, and headed for the Samish Flats. A potty stop at Bayview State Park added remarkably little action on the water, with Horned grebe, Common and Barrow’s goldeneyes, and a DC Cormorant the only new species.

The Samish Flats, with most of our time spent at the West 90, yielded more sunshine, a flock of an estimated 20,000 Snow geese with at least one nicely seen ‘blue goose”, more peregrines, kestrels, a single short eared owl flew in the distance as dusk approached but probably the most unusual bird of the day was a single Long-billed curlew in a large flock of Ring-billed gulls fairly close in on one of the muddy rivulets.
Overall a nice day was had by all, and Ed’s group totaled 82 species for the trip. (Ken can make a comment re his groups totals.)

Long-billed curlew at Hayton Reserve