It’s been an amazing yellow Pacific Northwest autumn! Before the late October and early November winds came and relieved the trees of their leaves, every forested area big and small lit up the day. It was one of the best shows of yellow I’ve seen in a while.

October was very warm and dry for around here. However, the last few days dropped quickly to the high 20’s- also unusual for here. Of course, early November brought horrendous rains and the associated flooding. Usually when this happens it’s due to rain-on-snow events (torrential downpours on top of deep snow), but there was little snow in the mountains. Instead 10-12 inches of rain in the mountains showed us who’s in control of our lives! Even here on Camano Island things got dicey due to a levee holding the South Fork of the Skagit River back from flooding Stanwood and the highway that leads to home. The power of water is incredibly humbling. Here’s something that makes up somewhere around 70% of our body and we absolutely need to survive that can take 500 year old trees down a river like they’re toothpicks, erode away a river bank in minutes, and take a house down floating to the ocean.

Building all the houses with all their pollutants in the floodplains is disturbing. The effect this has upon our streams and the Puget Sound is not helping salmon or any other living being. If people want to live in these areas then their homes should be built on stilts and no pollutants are allowed. It wouldn’t work. I get angry at the government regulations still allowing this to happen and have little sympathy for folks living in these areas. I don’t wish physical harm to them and do feel bad when people and animals die in flooding. However, what were they thinking building here and now they’ve lost everything?

Back to the beauty of autumn. Today I went up to the Skagit Flats, outside of Conway looking for the snow geese and found them. Last year 80,000 wintered in the area. You never see that many all together but 10,000 isn’t uncommon- especially after the bird murderers are gone. I found a pretty good-sized flock in the distance. I pulled off the road so I could listen to them call as they flew overhead. It is the sound of winter around here. Spring has its particular bird songs and winter has its particular bird calls heralding the season! I also saw a few swans and several bald eagles.

The Skagit Flats has a high density of wintering raptors. It’s one of my favorite areas in winter. You don’t have to walk to see them since it gets mighty cold and damp (okay, it’s not West Yellowstone cold J). You just need to know where to go, and watch closely. A good day is what we call a ”5 falcon day”- prairie (rare but not uncommon), peregrine (fairly common), gyrfalcon (rare), Merlin (somewhat common), and kestrel (common). I have only had a few days like that. They were quite gratifying and miraculous.

Plus there are winters when the snowy owls come down. That’s when you look at every white plastic bucket in the field because eventually one of them is an owl. I know- it’s happened to me. Then there’s the common buteos- red-tailed and rough-legged (down from the arctic). Both bald (very common) and golden eagles (rare) can be found. Sharp-shinned and Copper’s hawks are common and goshawks are seen infrequently. And we can’t forget the ever-present northern harriers and short-eared owls. What a treat to watch them both in the dimming light floating over fields looking for their vole meal. Like any wildlife watching it’s about being gifted with sightings and being in the right place at the right time. I bless every time I see these wonderful creatures.