My wife hosted her women’s discussion group on Friday, March 18, 2022, so it was an opportunity (if not obligation) to hit the road. I elected to head south (towards Fir Island) instead of north towards the Samish Flats, and it turned out to be a very good decision.

I first chose to tour March Point and along the way encountered a bird that I had never photographed in my 20+ years here… a Brant! Every Brant I had ever observed had been part of a flotilla located several hundred yards offshore. I’m somewhat embarrassed to say that while still “in the field” I had to send a friend a phone photo for an identification. I now have several really good photos of a Brant.

Next, it was off to Fir Island. I encountered thousands of Snow geese in a field along Best Road but they were not close to the road and there was no good place to pull over. There were more on Fir Island.

I encountered a flock of White-crowned sparrows at the Jensen F&W Access…

While photographing flying Snow geese I suddenly saw a Bald eagle approaching and just had time to direct the camera as it flew by. It was a lucky shot… this may be my best ever flying eagle photograph!

After lunch at a local tavern I returned to Maupin Road to find two very large groups of Snow geese in fields on either side of the road, and there was an almost continuous transfer from one field to the other. I positioned my vehicle so that could use my door window as a rest and spent considerable time photographing flying geese.

Technical note: I had been frustrated since getting my 500mm F5.6 lens that I was unable to get the same quality photos of flying birds that I had obtained with my 200-400mm F4.0 lens. As an experiment I moved my shutter speed from 1/1000 of a second to 1/1600 of a second. I’m not sure why it would have made a difference between the two lenses, but I found I was now getting better photos.