Winter birds before signs

Upon reading of the sign blight in Conway, I thought I’d go investigate more thoroughly. I went to where the proposed sign is to be put and watched the flight of the trumpeter swans as they left for the night. They don’t usually fly over the gas station, where the sign is proposed to go. They fly south along the hillside ‘til they get high enough to fly across the freeway, with Skagit Bay a couple of miles away!

The sign’s only real destination has to be on their already existing 76 sign. The 10’ x 30’ sign will be just under the “76,” on preexisting infrastructure. If my assumptions are incorrect and a completely new sign is built I’m not sure that I’d approve, but if my assumptions are correct, the sign should have no impact on migrating birds. Most migrating birds fly much higher than fifty feet, especially over freeways, gas stations and trees.

Less than five swans per year die hitting power lines. The same can be said of the ducks and geese.

An interesting fact: 50 years ago there were less than 50 swans that called the Skagit their wintering grounds and the geese next to never were seen outside of the bay. They only crossed the dikes about now, after the hunting season was over. They never used to cross the south fork of the Skagit River until the past 20 years. It has only been the past 10 years that they crossed the freeway.

The swans slowly grew in number, ‘til several years ago about 10,000 called this their winter home. This year there are about 30,000 snow geese that are in the Samish, Skagit and Stillaguamish watersheds. About a dozen years ago we had close to 80,000! Back in the ‘60s we averaged between 15,000-20,000.

After 1990 we taught the geese to eat the farmers’ wheat and grass and they slowly learned how to eat corn, spuds and weeds. Back when I was a kid you never saw them by the side of the road. Their main food was eelgrass in the bay, which has been choked out by spartina and too fast a rate of siltation.

Sincerely,

Glen Johnson

Skagit Valley