There are two requests for information on Ocean Shores and where the Game
Range is.
On arriving at Ocean Shores you are on Point Brown Avenue. At any
convenient cross street go to the right (west) to the next main street which
is Ocean Shores Blvd. Continue on it for a long ways. It will eventually
arrive at the jetty and then turn east. In about a half mile the divided road
becomes a two way road. At that spot on the right is the sewage plant
(probably closed on the weekend). Park on the west side of the SPP. and
follow the fence to the south then east and then follow the sand road a
hundred yards further to the water. There is good walking for about another
50 yards and from that point one would need waders at high tide.
We were there at high tide yesterday and there were several bars with
gulls or terns visible. The tern bar had about 50 Caspians and with
searching, two Elegants together. There could have been more in the flock
hidden from view. This bar was to the north. A good scope is necessary. There
were lots of flying Caspian Terns seen there and at Damon Point but no flying
Elegants. There were hundreds (thousands ?) of feeding pelicans and gulls out
in the channel and the bay just before high tide and could well have had all
the reported Elegant Terns. We left a half hour before full high tide to
check the pond on Damon Point and Bill's Spit.
The pond on Damon Point is not in the Birders Guide. It is best located
by stopping and looking at the map sign at the first outhouses after you turn
on the gravel road.. There is a parking widening at the appropriate spot on
the road (on the south) lined by big logs and a mowed path leaading to the
beach to the south. The sign at the outhouses indicates that the area is
closed because of nesting Snowy Plovers but the area with the closed signs is
only at the east end ot the Game Refuge.
There is no good way I know to view Bill's Spit. What I do is to go north
on Chinook Place until I get to a vacant lot just before a nice gray house
with a small greenhouse on the south with a sign on it "Grow Damnit!". There
is an unmarked right of way to the immediate south. The man of the house is
apt to yell at you and last year we had to extend the scope to its fullest
and stand on a stool to see over the alders which should be higher this year.
This year (not having a stool) we just walked through the vacant lot and
carefully scrambled down a blackberry free area of alders and over beach logs
until we could see the tip of the spit.
Most of the shorebirds we saw were at Bill's Spit with the best
being three Long-billed Curlews. There were a lot of shorebirds at the pond
on Damon Point mostly Dowitchers (we only heard Long-billeds, lots of
Westerns, a few Leasts and one Greater Yellowlegs. Bill's Spit had about 50
Marbled Godwits, 80 Whimbrels, 100's of Dowitchers and peep, about 30
Black-bellied Plovers and one Semipalmated Plover and a Ruddy Turnstone as
well as the 3 Long-billed Curlews.
Bob Norton
Joyce, WA
norton360 at aol.com
(360) 928-3053