Discovering Leque Island Unit Shorebirds

Leque Island, located west of Stanwood between Port Susan and Skagit bays, was once entirely salt marsh. Today it consists of wetlands and diked agricultural fields. I had past this location on several occasions and did not know that it existed until it started to be mentioned several times in one week on Tweeters. If you have not heard of Tweeters, it was founded around the end of 1992 by Dan Victor of the Washington Ornithological Society and the Seattle Audubon Society.It has evolved into a forum for exchange of information, observation, and opinion on a broad range of bird-related topics, from trip reports to scientific queries to general chat. You can view and or subscribe to the email list here http://www.scn.org/tweeters/.Each day i would see Legue Island Unit also known as Eide Road show up in the email list with several shorebirds being sighted. Directions to Leque Island Unit can be found at the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife Legue Island Unit.

Once on the road you will see corn fields on the right, depending on the time of year, which the WDFW contracts farmers to grow for the Geese and waterfowl for winter. At first it didn’t look like much once around the bend you will see the Stillaguamish River on the left and more open fields to your right, further down the road where the road is blocked off there is a parking lot. This lot requires a discover pass so don’t forget to put it out on the dashboard. Continue on foot pass the barriers and you will see the dyke on the left side of the road and three small ponds on the right. Once i seen other photographers there on the edge of the pond photographing hundreds of shorebirds within arms reach my excitement level exploded and then I made my way off the road through the waist high grass and sunk into the mud as i maneuvered my way to an idle spot without disturbing the feeding shorebirds or my fellow bird watchers. I left the house more out of curiosity to see this location without looking up the tide or location of the sun however the conditions were perfect. It was the idle time to be there with an incoming tide and late afternoon sun at our backs. There was a great diversity of shorebirds in the ponds. There were Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs, Short and long billed Dowitchers, Dulins, Western Sandpipers, and Killdeers. And the fact that we were able to be so close made for some wonderful photographs and delighted everyone that was out there. Toward the end of the day a Peregrine Falcon flew by with a small bird that was in its talons. Everyone was disappointed that they just missed the action because it had caught the bird from one of the two ponds behind us, and i still can not believe that everyone out there was facing the wrong direction. After the shorebirds settled down we went back to to observing the remaining shorebirds feed intently. About 40 minutes later all the shorebirds took to the air in an amazing massive swirling elliptical ball which looked like one living organism. This could only mean that there was a predator in the area. Would we be able to capture a falcon in action this time no, we would not the Falcon was not hunting. So what was the falcon doing this time, well something I have not witness before, it was just flying above the pond eating on a recent catch. It circled above the pond for several minutes bending its head down taking bites out of the small bird it had in its talons. The swirling of the birds got more intense as the falcon continued to fly over. Pretty soon the shore birds had enough of the threat and the reminder of what could happen as the falcon continued to glide and eat. The birds decided to leave and they all dispersed out of the area as if the ball exploded and then there was a silence. For pictures of the shorebirds that was seen on this day please view my Leque Island Unit Gallery.