Subject: Bowerman Birding
Date: Apr 20 08:57:35 1996
From: David Beatty - djbeatty at techline.com


For Tweeters readers information, here is an e-mail message that was
requested of me by a private party, relative to Bowerman Basin birding:


>To: Richard_Prentki at SMTP.mms.gov
>From: djbeatty at techline.com (David Beatty)
>Subject: Bowerman Birding
>
>Happy to oblige:
>
>Birds are not here in bigger numbers until the last week in April.
>
>Grays Harbor Audubon is sponsoring activities on the last weekend;
lectures, displays, guided tours, not only to Bowerman but to Ocean Shores
and Westport.
>
>Call our coordinator for this, Ginny Molenaar at 360 533-2619.
>
>Presumably you want to be on you own: then;
>
>Take shuttle bus from Hoquiam High School parking lot on weekends., or
during the week you (probably) can park at Bowerman Airfield, not at Lana's
Cafe however.
>
>To find the best mudflats, go through Hoquiam, then stay on the Ocean
Shores highway (hiway 109) until just after the high school playfields, then
turn south on Paulson Road. There will be signs. The best birding is at the
end of the airfield peninsula (the northwest end). You'll find a guide wire
or marking posts where the pavement ends and the grass begins.
>
>Also a well trodded pathway, with people on it most likely, will show you
the way.
>Best viewing times are between two hours before and two hours after high tide.
>There are also viewing areas through the trees as you walk out to the end
of the peninsula.
>
>Stop at the south side of the Hoquiam Sewage Lagoon, for views of ducks on
the lagoon, and shorebirds and gulls on the bay side of the roadway, with
land birds on the strip in between.
>
>Turn your eyes skyward above the Bowerman mudflats for the occasional
Peregrine or Merlin who also come to view the shorbirds. By far, Western
Sandpipers are the most numerous shorebird species, but you should see Least
Sandpipers, Dunlin, Long and Short-billed Dowitcher, Greater and lesser
Yellowlegs, Black-bellied Plover, Semi-palmated Plover, possibly Red Knot
and a good 5 to 10 other species who are rarer at Bowerman but would be
found in other habitats around Grays Harbor, including the ocean beaches and
the jetties.
>
>
DJ Beatty