Getting Acquainted With The Skagit River

We are somewhat rain chickens. We like it inside, and our house is still new enough to us that we are not yet bored with it. So if it's precipitating, it's tempting to stay in. To defeat this tendency, Debby signs us up for trips, like the one on Saturday to go out looking for eagles. It rained all day, but we jumped on a van with 13 others and drove up to Skagit valley to check out the local birds. Most of the day was spent driving, so we got to see some new territory directly to the north of us.

The northern Puget Sound area has several river systems. Northernmost is the Skagit River that drains a basin of 6900 km^2 and discharges into the sound near Mount Vernon. We drove along the Skagit NE toward Ross Lake in the hunt for eagles, then returned along the Sauk tributary. Between 600-800 bald eagles are present between November and February in a good year. The Skagit River system has three major hydroelectric dams producing 700+ MW of power for Seattle. Yet it is the only river in the Washington that still hosts all five native species of salmon and two of trout. That's why the eagles flock here.

Near the estuary we passed some fields filled with trumpeter swans, but didn't stop. They were not eagles. While driving up the Skagit river, we counted around 25 eagles. The count was way down from a year ago because the river was high and muddy, making fishing difficult. At the first stop, I managed to get a shot of a young adult at a distance of probably close to 50 yards. I left my tele-converter on the van, so had only 400mm to work with. It is a weak photo, but the only bird of the day that was close enough to even attempt a shot. At least the species is identifiable.

 

Debby conversed with the other women on the van, discussing books and knitting and teaching and the like. A good time was had by all. And when nearly home, the sunset was visible in a break in the weather.