Date: 3/15/26 2:06 pm From: Dennis Paulson via Tweeters <tweeters...> Subject: [Tweeters] Whoopee!
We drove up to the Samish Flats this morning to see what we could see, and our first stop was on Sam Bell Road at a gigantic flock of waterfowl, many dozens of swans (I forgot to count them) and certainly well over 5,000 ducks, mostly American Wigeons and Northern Pintails but some Mallards as well. I scanned and scanned and scanned in vain for Eurasian Wigeons but never found one, my biggest surprise of the day.
But some swans were right up at the road, and the second-closest one turned out to be the Whooper! We watched it feeding and drinking and took photo after photo of the swans and the entire flock. Then there was activity way down at the west end of the field. A cow had escaped, and someone came out in a little ATV to round it up. Even though it was three or four hundred yards away, it flushed much of the duck flock and most of the swans, including our birds that flew up and landed far out in the field. If we had arrived a half-hour later, there would have been no way to see the Whooper.
And not long afterwards, a Bald Eagle flushed most of the ducks, although not the swans. A live, healthy swan apparently has quite a bit of immunity to eagle predation.
We saw othing particularly unusual for the rest of our drive down through the flats and a hike at Wylie Slough. Couldn’t find the Black Phoebes that others had just seen, and several people were looking in vain for a Swamp Sparrow that had been there. But birds were singing, and there were Tree Swallows all over the place; spring is definitely springing. And apparently the new normal is not to see Snow Geese in that area.
