Winter Birds of the Skagit Valley

On our drive to Bellingham last month, we took the scenic route (it’s all scenic) and stopped by the Skagit Valley, where migrating birds had arrived for the winter.

You may remember the Skagit Valley for its fields of daffodils and tulips in the spring.

It’s also famous for the birds who travel the Pacific Flyway, visiting from the far north.

We’ve gone to see them before, but this time I was looking for a specific location: Fir Island. Not sure exactly where it was, we stopped to ask a local.

‘You’re on it,’ he said, ‘when you crossed the bridge over the Skagit River.’

It didn’t seem like an island to me, but I guess technically it is, bordered by the Skagit River and Skagit Bay.

It was worth asking, because he sent us to a spot we’d never been before, the Fir Island Farm Estuary Restoration Project. “The Fir Island Farm Reserve is a Game Reserve with over 200 acres of restored intertidal estuary and managed agricultural land in southwest Skagit County. The reserve attracts thousands of snow geese, swans, ducks and shorebirds in the fall through early spring. The unit is managed to provide an undisturbed feeding and resting area for wintering waterfowl adjacent to Skagit Bay.”

It was a gray and rainy day, but the birds didn’t mind; they were everywhere.

I posted pictures of the bird below on Facebook and experts helped me identify the long-billed dowitcher, whose breeding grounds are in northern Alaska and Siberia.

While I was watching the birds and ducks around me, the sky high above was suddenly filled with raucous clamoring noise and delightful patterns.

These were likely snow geese, known to be noisy in flight.

On our drive home a few days later, we stopped by Arlington, another farming community to the east of Fir Island, where I saw a large congregation of snowbirds that dwarfed the Canadian geese that were with them. The pictures aren’t great as I had to shoot from a moving vehicle. Still, I was happy to see them.

The Skagit Valley was hit hard with flooding last week, forcing evacuations. I don’t know if the birds were impacted or not, maybe it’s all the same to them. Restrictions have now been lifted as the Skagit River returns to more normal levels, but a flood watch remains. I hope to make it back up to see the snowbirds sometime this winter. We managed to find great congregations and good weather on our last visit, here:

~ Susanne