Day Tripping 4

We headed north  last week to find the trumpeter swans and snow geese wintering in the Skagit Valley delta.  This is the area where all those tulips are grown.  There’s an island, Fir Island, which is not more than a part of the delta where the Skagit forks on its way to Puget Sound.  

Well, we found them.  Here’s a small gaggle of snow geese on a field eating the fresh growth of what looks like hay.  Lots of milk farms up here by the bay.   

I tried to capture a video so you could hear the sound several hundred geese make, but they are hard to pick up because of the ambient noise from the wind.  Out here there is nothing between you and the bay but the dikes.   Just after we got back into the car a farm worker set off some fireworks to scare off the gaggle so they would not do depredation to the crop.  Unfortunately I was unable to capture the sight of hundreds of geese taking off in a huge wave and then circling around to land over in the next farmers field.  Square Space has just updated this mobile app to allow posting of full galleries, as you can see from the above set of photos.  They have yet to allow posting of videos except by URL from another site.  I did post a video on my Facebook page for friends.  

Just after leaving the freeway we came across a flock of trumpeter swans.  This area serves as a wintering ground for them as well.  They aren't as many in numbers, mainly because they are rarer than the snow geese.  It's a small wonder to be able to drive only an hour north of our home to find these uncommon species.  Sometimes it makes the grey weather worthwhile, but not completely.  

We're planning to head back up this way on the next sunny day we have no appointments scheduled.  I'd like to get some photos of the large flocks taking off against the green of the Cascade foothills.  I have some from many years ago and would like to get some better, and newer ones.