...........Been absent for along time----long working hours and other
things this summer!!!!!!!
...........The Sunday before last I went walking around Ridgefield
Nat'l. Wildlife Refuge-------on an absolutely gorgeous day with an
absolutely gorgeous, quiet relaxing surroundings!!!!!!!! Here's a quick
list of what I saw:

Band-tailed Pidgeons (3)
Killdeer(many)
Great Egret(2)
Blue Herons( *very* abundant!!!)
Swallows(several species)
Greater Yellowlegs
Red-winged Blackbirds
Pied-billed Grebes(5)
Western Grebes
Bewicks Wren
Wood Ducks(8)
Cinnamon Teals(some still in breeding plummage)
Green-winged Teals
Am. Coots
Mallards(males in many 'molting' variations of brown!!!!)
Red-tailed Hawk
No. Harrier Hawk
Marsh Wrens
Robins
Crows( of course!!!!!!
.............Prety quiet, in general. Didn't see the Painted Turtles,
different usual Garter Snakes, nor the usual several varieties of
frogs!!! Where did they go to???????????
.............P.S. The road reconstruction is completed, and the refuge
is now open all week long!!!
----------------------------------

...............Last weekend I visited Long Beach Peninsula, Wash. Ikept
mostly to ocean beach and Leadbetter- Willapa Bay area, not visiting the
north jetty area near Illwaco as I usually do. The weather was
fantastic.....70'-75'---shorts and tee-shirt weather, even along the
beach....with a very light onshore breeze. A little "in again-out again"
fog Sun. morn presented no problems. Here's what I saw:

Black-bellied Plovers(many.....in the process of changing
to non-breeding brown plummage).
Western Sandpipers(zillions!!!)
Sanderlings(thousands!!!)
Semipalmated Plovers(fairly abundant)
Ruddy Turnstones( About 18------a *first* time observance for
these birds for me!!!!)
Whimbrels (2)
Short-billed Dowitchers(just a few)
Willets(a fair amount)
Caspian Terns(many)
Gulls
Heermann's Gulls
Pigeon Guillemots(on Willapa Bay, of all places!!!!)
Brown Pelicans
Canada Geese
Mallards
Swallows
White-crowned Sparrow
Double-crested Commorants

....................Since there was a very low tide in the mid-afternoon
both days(-tides) Willapa Bay was almost a total mudflat!!!!!!! There
were many assorted sizes and apparent types of shorebirds further out ,
but even my 30-40 power spotting scope wasn't strong enough to help me
clearly identify the shorebirds. One can only conjecture what
interesting species may have been out there( I was hoping to see Red
Knots, but at the great distance I don't know!!!!!!!).
.............P.S. I enjoy watching birds, but I don't feel very inclined
to keep precise totals in numbers on what I observe. To those birders
who are interested in exact totals, please forgive me on this one.

...........Bye now

Gerald Hamilton
Brush Prairie, Wash.
gerald at e-z.net