Migratory birds fill the skies, especially in winter

For people who look to the skies, winter in Whatcom County means birds on the wing, and lots of them.

Northwestern Washington is known worldwide as a birders’ paradise because of the sheer number and variety of species that breeze through or stop seasonally.

“There’s so many birds. It’s phenomenal. It’s staggering,” said Joe Meche, a local birder and past president of North Cascades Audubon Society.

His favorite winter birding locations are Semiahmoo Spit and Whatcom Falls Park, especially the wetlands and thickets around Scudder Pond.

“(Whatcom Falls Park) is a wonderful place,” Meche said, but he’s a thousand times more jazzed about the birding at beaches of Semiahmoo.

“The things that you have the potential to see ... I recommend the spot to birders from out of the area. It’s user-friendly and absolutely kid-friendly. They can run, climb, observe,” he said. “That’s the place to be in the wintertime.”

Semiahmoo Spit is an approximately one-mile strip of land that protects Drayton Harbor from Semiahmoo Bay. One side of the spit faces out to sea; the other side faces inland across the harbor toward Blaine. Part of it is county parkland.

Birds that can be seen in the Semiahmoo area include three kids of grebes, three kinds of scoters, two kinds of loons, two kinds of cormorants, Cooper’s hawks, short-eared owls and bald eagles, Meche said.

Other waterfowl include brightly marked harlequin ducks, plus pintails, mallards and widgeons. Canada geese are plentiful, along with great blue herons and the occasional black oystercatcher with its brilliant red-orange bill.

Two of the “big draws” for birders that come in winter are brants — a short-necked goose — and long-tailed ducks with their distinctive plumage, Meche said.

“They are arctic breeders and they’re circumpolar,” he said. “A lot of these birds are good gauges of the environment. They find abundant food, which is why they come here.”

Other big migratory birds that winter locally are trumpeter swans, which flock to farm fields from Lynden to Sumas.

“The swans, they come in and feed on the stubble” from a harvested field, Meche said. Farther south, bold white snow geese congregate by the tens of thousands in the fields of western Skagit County.

Meche said one of the easiest ways to see birds is to look out your window.

“One of the great things about back yards is that if you hang a feeder for them, they will come,” he said. “Hang a block of suet and wait for the bushtits to come. Hang a hummingbird feeder and you will have Anna’s hummingbirds all through the winter.”

This story was originally published November 25, 2015 at 4:01 PM with the headline "Migratory birds fill the skies, especially in winter."