Stanwood celebrates unflappable snow geese
Published 10:58 pm Saturday, February 23, 2008
STANWOOD — It was almost half a mile of nearly solid white on a ryegrass field.
The snow geese had landed.
“Good heavens,” muttered Fran Ellis of Spokane, who was on a guided bus tour of places to see snow geese and swans as part of the third annual Port Susan Snow Goose and Birding Festival.
The event, centered at the Floyd Norgaard Cultural Center in Stanwood, features bus tours, art, information about birds and the environment, a pancake breakfast and barbecue. It continues through today.
The number of snow geese that winter in Skagit and Snohomish counties and the Fraser Valley in British Columbia has exceeded 100,000, said Mike Davison, a biologist for the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.
More than 103,000 were counted in December, he said.
It appears global warming has been good to snow geese. The birds that winter near Stanwood breed on Russia’s Wrangell Island in the summer, and a lack of snow there has made their nesting easier, said Bob Hitz of Stanwood, a retired biologist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who guided the bus tour.
While the giant flocks of birds have made for great viewing for festival visitors, it hasn’t been so good for farmers. The birds load up on winter wheat and ryegrass.
“They’re like locusts: They come in and feed,” Hitz said.
The festival sponsors, including the Stanwood Chamber of Commerce, are cognizant of that fact and arranged a panel discussion on how the birds and farmers can coexist.
Mark Christianson, co-owner of Marine View Farms, said the birds make a dent in the company’s ryegrass crop.
“We do get hit pretty hard in the springtime,” he said during the discussion. “We love the birds, they’re beautiful, but there’s a price to paid for it.”
Christianson said the birds’ effect isn’t debilitating — yet.
“If they get to 200,000, it’s a whole other ball game,” he said.
To keep them in check, last year the state began issuing permits to hunt the snow geese. The season began in early November and ended in late January.
Farmers use several tactics to scare the birds away, with varying degrees of success. These include planting large white flags and, occasionally, farm animal carcasses that draw eagles, which in turn scare the snow geese. The carcasses work better than the flags, but only temporarily, Christianson said.
“My neighbors are scaring them to my fields and I’m scaring them back to theirs,” he said, drawing laughs from those at the talk.
The bus tour, carrying about 20 people, went by a field where eagles had been feeding on a carcass. Either the eagles were full, the carcass had been picked clean, or both, as the only eagles seen were perched in nearby trees.
The tour also came across a field where 22 trumpeter swans had landed. Swans, too, are on the increase in the Stanwood area, according to Davison. But they’re not as hard on the fields as the geese.
Still, the highlight of the nearly two-hour tour was the huge field of geese just south of town. Estimates of the number of birds there ranged up to 20,000. The bus stopped and let everyone out to walk down a dirt road for about 20 minutes to watch the geese. The birds, continually squawking to each other, seemed unfazed by the people standing nearby.
Carol Blunck of Bellingham was having a great time watching the birds.
“This is awesome,” she said. “It’s so exciting to hear them all chattering. And it’s a beautiful day, what more can you ask for?”
Herald reporter Kaitlin Manry contributed to this story.
Reporter Bill Sheets: 425-339-3439 or sheets @heraldnet.com.
