[Tweeters] Skagit/Samish flats trip report

[Jamie Holland]

In the interest of adding content to this community for once, rather than
merely consuming everyone else's, I'd like to provide a couple of notes on
my family's pre-Christmas trip to the Skagit and Samish flats. It isn't
terribly special, but perhaps it will be of interest to someone!

eBird trip report: https://ebird.org/tripreport/186547

I started the trip by giving my 11-year-old son, Vaughn, an early Christmas
present -- a new pair of VORTEX DIAMONDBACK 10x42s! I caught a great sale
at Optics Planet. Three years of hard use on his CELESTRON NATURE DX 8x42s
led to a broken eyecup, which he has been valiantly using, but the kid is a
heck of a birder and has earned the right to a functioning pair of optics.
He is delighted with the increased magnification (and it definitely helped
us ID that wigeon...).

I also gave my mom -- a self-professed non-birder who "can't use
binoculars" -- a new pair of 8x25s from NOCS PROVISIONS. They're at the
perfect intersection of function, weight, and style for a non-birder. Once
she adjusted them and took a few pieces of advice from my son on how to
spot birds through binocs, she was amazed to discover that she actually can
use binoculars, and was off to the races, spotting almost everything we saw
all day long!

   - We saw lots of SWANS in the fields in the Skagit Valley, but most were
   too far away to ID species with 100% confidence. Ironically, there were
   also swans in the Snohomish Valley as we drove up.
   - No SNOW GEESE for us that day, but we did see them in the Snohomish
   Fields on Christmas Eve.
   - We started at Fir Island Farm Reserve, where we spent a lot of time
   examining the massive flock of wigeons. With his nice new 10x42s, my son
   spotted a red head in the flock, and we spent many enjoyable minutes
   tracking it down to ensure that everyone got eyes on the beautiful EURASIAN
   WIGEON as well as a nice STORM WIGEON.
   - Continued to Jensen Access, where my mom slipped on the little bridge,
   ended up on her back, and we thought our birding day would end up with her
   in the ER. Luckily, she rallied (with no broken bones or lost binoculars)
   and kept soldiering onward. (That bridge is fine if you keep to the center,
   but horribly slippery if you walk on the outside, like if you need to use
   the handrail. Perhaps I should tell someone in charge to fix it?).
   - Ate lunch at Shawn O'Donnell's at the Farmhouse. Nice atmosphere,
   comfortable food, decent prices. They offer their weekday lunch specials on
   the weekend as well.
   - After lunch, we were forced to consult our field guides to ID some
   lovely sparrows picking through the parking lot in the golden midday sun.
   Puzzling over our books revealed these to be simply immature WHITE-CROWNED
   SPARROWS, but we didn't begrudge them the chase. We enjoy those "could it
   be?" moments wherein we have to dig through our knowledge and make sure we
   aren't seeing something unusual. You never know, and it always makes us
   better birders in the end. We sometimes can't decide in the field, so we
   examine photos at home and debate for hours; it's honestly the best way to
   spend time with your kid, if they're into it.
   - We walked the upland trail at the Padilla Bay National Estuarine
   Research Reserve. Didn't see a ton of birds, but it was a nice stretch on a
   day without a ton of walking, with a mostly accessible trail.
   - Our final stop of the day was, of course, the Samish Flats East 90 to
   observe the interactions between SHORT-EARED OWLS and NORTHERN HARRIERS in
   the fading afternoon light. We enjoyed better views of TRUMPETER SWANS,
   catching glimpses of WESTERN MEADOWLARKS in the grass, and hearing COMMON
   RAVENS rattling in the distance. A GREAT EGRET overhead and a flash of a
   PEREGRINE FALCON rounded out a lovely day, with no injuries and no
   complaints from the crew!

I hope everyone has had a wonderful birding year! I submitted 107 birding
checklists this year, and I also figured out how to create Trip Reports in
eBird. I really enjoy looking back at our route and remembering the quirks
and highlights of each trip. We visited the LOWER RIO GRANDE VALLEY as well
as SAN DIEGO AND VICINITY this year; perhaps I'll do a quick write-up of
those at some point.

-Jamie Holland
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