During the fall and winter birding season we share the testimonials of the different user groups in Skagit whose lives intersect with the wild birds in and on the landscape. This month we talked with Jessica Gigot, sheep farmer and co-owner of Harmony Fields Farm in Bow. Gigot is also an author, poet and journalist. Her memoir, A Little Bit of Land, chronicles her path to becoming a farmer in Skagit, and is a master class in the how-to, patience and dedication of small scale farming ambition for someone not born into it. She has been featured in SPF’s The Dirt, in a profile by Anne Bayse.

I’m an accidental birder. It’s very hard to live in Skagit Valley and not notice birds!

I love the Skagit flats in the winter the best. There is something about the quiet, the light, the migrating birds. Winter can be a slower time for tourism and people coming to see the birds can also contribute to local businesses, especially during a slower time of year.

Living on a farm, the birds creep into your consciousness. Is that a Cooper’s hawk on the power line?

Are the resident Great horned owls vocalizing in the Douglas fir?

As farmers we are outside working daily and we get an early start in the morning, so we come in contact with birds every day.

A pair of Bald eagles built a nest on our property in 2019, in the poplars that line the north and south ends of our land. They are typically in residence by October every year and linger through June. Last year there were two youngsters and one got pushed out and didn't make it.

There was another occasion when we found a distressed juvenile eagle and took it to a wildlife rehabilitation center. The bird had lead poisoning and later died. There is still a lot of lead in the environment and the larger birds will ingest it in its various forms– either from the prey they eat (like the eagles) or direct contact with lead pellets in soil or lead fishing lures in shallow lake beds (like the swans).

I have interactions with smaller birds, too. We have a lot of habitat on our farm; including hedgerows and stands of trees the previous owner planted. We attract American Goldfinches and Cedar waxwings for instance, and a Pileated woodpecker is doing a number on our 1930’s apple tree. Swallows and sparrows nest in our barn.

American robins like to nest in our apple trees every year. I once witnessed a whole nest of fledglings leave the nest all at once. Their mother was nearby, alarm calling, with a worm in her bill!

As a sheep farmer, I’m cognizant of certain hazards with the larger birds. The eagles are predators for our lambs. When the sheep give birth they produce a placenta. Some sheep will eat it, but if it is left in the straw it will attract curious Common ravens.

And I am a little obsessed with swans. The swans mark the seasons– they arrive in the fall when we stop milking our sheep, when things are quieting down on the farm for cheese production.

My life is heavy on the cream color of my sheep, their milk, and the similar color tone of the swans in the fields! I admire the alpine glow of the birds at dawn and dusk, as they forage in the fields. It’s something to see under the backdrop of Mount Baker.

Martha Jordan is a local scientist and advocate for swans who runs the Northwest Swan Conservation Association and has been conducting swan survey counts for years in Skagit. She is now working with a graduate student and WDFW who are banding and collaring some of the birds for more in-depth study of the Pacific population that overwinters here. I volunteered to help with the Skagit survey this past January and have gotten to know the local swan population in this way.

I’m fascinated by how far swans travel during their migration, and their patterns of movement in the course of the day. Many of them overnight in the Barney Lake (a Skagit Land Trust property) or other foothill lakes. The Trumpeter Swan Association of North American is also a great resource.

If we didn’t have all this farmland, the swans wouldn’t be here in these numbers (~15,000 each winter). It’s the corn, other grains, and potato leftovers in the fields that attract them. The unharvested potato fields in the area are full of swans in the winter. We might have swans next to our farm for weeks, just foraging.

I’m kind of a swan nerd, you could say! I visit other parts of the country and the world where swans occur to seek them out. Last January, I visited the Slimbridge Wetland Center of the Wetland & Wildfowl Trust in England, to see the Bewick’s swans, which travel to Britain from Siberia, similar to our swans traveling to Washington from Alaska and the Yukon. The Bewick’s swans are similar to our Tundra swans, though smaller and with more yellow on their bills.

I attended graduate school at Washington State University and worked at the Research and Extension center in Mount Vernon. I once saw a falconer use his bird to manage raspberry pests and that demonstration illuminated the complexity of farm ecosystems and the importance of finding a good balance between land cultivation and native flora and fauna. We love having birds on our farm, but our farm is also a business, too.

It is important for area visitors to appreciate that a lot of private land supports these bird populations and creates habitat for them. The Skagit Valley is a beautiful destination, as well as a working agricultural landscape. It’s our work and residence and we care about the birds, too.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
By: Bryony Angell

Bird Wise Observations: Sheep Farmer Jessica Gigot

Bird Wise Observations: Festival Organizer Maia Tekle