Well Tweets, luck was with me this morning (I must admit I was rather
frustrated when I got home to see David Wright's message on Tweeters) and
I saw the juv. Ruff. Very cooperative, I saw it at 6:30 by myself, then
again at 7:15 with Kelly Cassidy and 2 others.

We went on to Ocean Shores, and though we were spared the large number of
shorebirds reported earlier (much to my disappointment), a large
concentration of pelicans and gulls at the lee end of the jetty was
exciting. There were at least 50 pelicans here (4 adults) and about 50
Heerman's Gulls (about 20% adults). An hour spent here also produced a
jaegar (probable Parasitic), about a dozen Sooty Shearwaters, Common
Murres (one dying on the beach plus many healthy ones feeding), etc. The
shearwaters were great, you could watch them feeding in the tempest of
pelicans and gulls, as they all followed fish in and out of the lagoon.
The shearwaters, being the most efficient fishers of the bunch, were
harassed by gulls as soon as they broke the surface again. It was neat
to see how they'd drop out of the air and into the water without a splash
(hence the name!).

At the Oyhut Game Range, 3 golden-plovers were seen in Salicornia. One
seemed to clearly be Pacific juvenile, another looked very much like a
Pacific juvenile (but less confident than the first), and the third was
indeterminate to me. The ID of the first was based on very bright
upperparts, golden on the head, nape, mantle, all over. The second was
not so bright as the first (lacked gold on the nape and mantle), the third
even less (gold only on upperparts of wings). Of course I brought Dennis'
book along, but upon consulting it lost what little confidence I had in
the ID of these species! Seems very bright Americans can resemble
Pacifics, and very dull Pacifics look like Americans (contrary to the
simple IDs described by Peterson, NGS guide, and Hayman et al.). These
birds were in fairly tall Salicornia, so belly was hard to see, and they
were reluctant to show a front view (despite watching for about 20 min.).

-------------
Michael R. Smith
Univ. of Washington, Seattle
whimbrel at u.washington.edu
http://salmo.cqs.washington.edu/~wagap/mike.html