Springtime in the Skagit Valley

With Molly Claire out of the water we are staying in Marysville Washington with our friend Bill Jaquette.  Our trips back to Anacortes to keep track of things take us through the always picturesque Skagit River valley.  This March we've been rewarded with all manner of wonders.

Firstly, huge fields of daffodils are blooming in the valley. The Skagit farmers grow them for the bulbs not the flowers, I think.  Bill says that they let them bloom so they can eliminate the mutants before they harvest the bulbs.  In April fields of tulips will be in bloom.  We may or may not get to see those.

Then there are the birds!   Graceful trumpeter and tundra swans winter in the valley.   We've stopped numerous times to watch hundreds of the big birds with the swooping necks feeding in the fields.  We are lucky to see them as they will be leaving soon for their summer home in Alaska.

And finally, there are the snow geese...thousands of them!!  They blanket entire fields and project a cacophony of honks and gobbles and snow geese sounds.  These snow geese are also wintering in the valley from their breeding grounds on Siberia's Wrangell Island and mainland.