They’re here.
Snow geese and swans, Snohomish County’s seasonal visitors, have flown south for the winter, where they’ll feed in local farm fields and rest up before heading north again this spring.
More than 70,000 snow geese will come to the Northwest from Wrangell Island in Russia, flying some 3,100 miles. The trip takes a month or two, depending on the prevailing winds.
Don Kraege, head of the waterfowl section for the state Department of Fish and Wildlife, said that’s a stable and healthy population for the geese. He said samples show that about 15 percent to 20 percent of the birds are juveniles, so this was a good breeding year for the geese, as well.
Traditionally, snow geese have used the deltas of the Skagit and Fraser rivers as winter feeding grounds. Some of the birds often spend the night in Port Susan Bay, so nearby Stanwood has also been a traditional feeding area.
Increasingly, a subset of the group can be found around fields along the Stillaguamish and Snohomish rivers in Snohomish County, Kraege said.
A couple years ago, Kraege’s agency received a grant to install transmitters on 10 of the birds. The transmitters are no longer working, but while they did, officials discovered that a group of birds was regularly hanging out in new areas.
“About 5,000 of the birds were starting to use an area around Monroe,” Kraege said, noting that it had a lot to do with the fields having appropriate crops.
In addition to snow geese, the Monroe and Snohomish areas are also popular for the winter swans, mostly trumpeters and also some tundra swans.
Some 11,600 trumpeter swans winter in the Northwest, Kraege said, noting it’s the largest winter population of trumpeters in the United States.
He noted that the large birds, which can weigh 32 pounds, are 4 feet tall, and have wing spans of 8 feet, were hunted nearly to extinction. “They’re a big bird and they were easy to hunt,” Kraege said.
Through the years, their numbers have risen. Now there are an estimated 25,000 of them in North America, he said. “They’re quite a success story,” he added.
The birds that winter in the Northwest come from Alaska. They’re a protected species in Washington.
The swans and snow geese feed in the area into March, providing lots of time for viewing trips. While the migrating birds have long been visitors in British Columbia and in Skagit County, you really don’t have to go that far.
Their numbers have increased in Snohomish County, partly due to the expansion of protected areas around the Stillaguamish River.
Good viewing
- Farm fields north and south of Stanwood and around the town of Silvana.
- Fir Island northwest of Conway in Skagit County.
- Farm fields in Skagit County north of Highway 20.
Tips for viewing
- Don’t forget to take your binoculars or viewing scopes and the biggest telephoto lens for your camera.
- Remember that swans are protected from harassment, so stay in your car while viewing or photographing them if you can.
- Cars make a good blind for snow geese as well. The birds will all leave if you get too close. Most of the birds feed in private farm fields, so don’t trespass.
- And the geese are sought after during hunting season, so watch out for hunters.
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