Saturday, December 31, 2011

Winter Birds in the Skagit


After kicking around Blanchard Mountain this morning, I went looking for birds. The Skagit valley in winter is a great place for birding. I've been way into it this month. This morning I saw at least 30 eagles, a few peregrine falcons, hawks, and some amazing flocks of little birds that shall remain nameless, for now.  I saw at least 7 eagles in two different trees.

I wish I had worthy camera gear. I realize these photos aren't much--but they help remind me of what I was doing in this here and now. All sorts of people were out on the side of the road, with good camera gear, taking pictures of eagles. Today I was in the flats near Edison, but there are a lot of places to go. I try to stay near the rivers, as that's where the birds seem to hang out.

I was really looking for a snowy owl. I've never seen one, but I understand a few are around here and there. In the summer they live up in the northern parts of Canada, but every few years they make it this far south in the winter. I guess they tend to hang out in fields, and can be mistaken for other white birds, like the snow geese. No luck today, but the search will continue.

I loaded the Audubon bird guide on my phone this week. It has a function that allows persons using the app to report sightings, and then the sightings are mapped. Pretty cool, especially when it comes to trying to locate a rarer bird like the snowy owl.



1 comment:

Scotty said...

Postscript: two days later, we saw a snowy white owl at the Fish and Wildlife Reserve off of Fir Island Road! So cool--about 200 yards away, but the owl just stuck out, white and all, perched on a log. A hawk tried to scare it from its perch for about 20 minutes. The owl's head would sort of pivot this way and that, but it stood still.