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Photo by
Marty Lehr, March 30, 2023
This is
part of the Paradise I live in. Recently I was with friends on the mainland
going through the SkagitValley. It was a sudden burst of warm spring (to last
only 3 days). It is one of the most fertile valleys in the country. The
farmlands and wetlands, estuaries and marine waters, prairies and forests of
the Skagit Valley provide the wintertime habitat needs for hundreds of bird
species, including trumpeter swans, snow geese, bald eagles, peregrine falcons,
and countless others.
This valley
is the winter home of over 100,000 Snow geese and the Skagit Flats has been
identified as an Important Bird Area by the National Audubon Society and in
2012 it was designated as Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network (WHSRN)
site.
The Snow geese
arrive from Wrangel Island in the Arctic in
massive, undulating Vs. in the autumn. You can hear them coming as clouds of
them descend on the fields. The masses
look like snow on the green fields. The experience to be in the middle of this phenomenon
is a wonder to behold, one which I never tire of seeing, even after
many years.
