These locations were new for me, visiting friends staying in South Bend,
WA, during their academic sabbatical. On Saturday afternoon 03-08-97, we
drove down to the Long Beach Peninsula and all the way up to Leadbetter
Point: Delightful surprises (for me) in weather trying very hard to be hideous,
mostly succeeding, and difficult to keep binos dry!

Out on Willapa Bay (plus a few closer in on the point mud flats) were
approximately 300! Brant, very beautiful. In the 45 min we were able to
stay at the Point beach (really gale-driven rain!), there were wave-after
wave-after wave of small shorebirds, estimate between 2800 and 3000. With
the help of 3 field guides plus Dennis Paulson's indispensible "Shorebirds
of the Pacific Northwest," I am confident in reporting that at least 95%
of these waves of shorebirdlets were Dunlin still in basic plumage. There
were 30 to 50 tiny, darker, beginning-to-color-up sandpipers with clearly
buffy breasts that had to be Least sandpipers. These trailed the flights
of Dunlin and fed near them. A "chocolate falcon," i.e., Merlin afforded
a spectacular show of zig-zagging columns of shorebirds trying to avoid
being the falcon's lunch.

I searched, but did not see ANY Sanderlings nor Semipalmated or Western
sandpipers. They might be expected because Least sandpipers commonly
associate with them on mudflats. There was a single bird feeding
with one group that was obviously larger than the Dunlin, but still a
smallish shorebird. Its plumage can be described as "transitional"
between basic and alternate. It was plump and showed white
"fringes" on some coverts, with developing blotched richer-rufous color on
the back. I did not see the probing bill length as clearly as I would have
liked, wondered Dowitcher or small Godwit? My other best guess is a
big surfbird acquiring breeding plumage, any ideas on this one, anybody?
The mudflat habitat is not particularly characteristic of this
rockier-shore-bird, but in migration, where there is convenient and easy
food, there is foraging! Viewing of these birds should have been easy
within 35 meters, but the driving rain made it challenging.

Other noteworthy birds seen in the area were a single Greater Yellowlegs,
3 Bald eagles-all adult, assorted Red-tails, and a noisy flock of Pine
siskins, Common bushtits, few Golden-crowned kinglets in the wooded area
ajoining the open beach of the Point.

On 03-09-97, in the morning, I walked the asphalt trail that follows the
Willapa River between South Bend and Raymond, WA. There were three
species of loons all seen withing 20 meters: 2 Red-throated, 2 Pacific,
and a single Common plus a few Western and Horned grebes and a Great Blue
Heron with well-developed breeding plumes. In general, the huge rafts of
wintering birds on this river and the nearby bays/lakes/ponds have clearly
begun Spring dispersal. Note: Outdoor artwork provides other delightful
viewing all through the South Bend/Raymond area. There are life-size to
much-larger-than-life-size flat metal sculptures depicting NW wildlife,
birds, Native Americans, fishermen and pioneering life along the main
roads through these two proximate Olympic Peninsula hamlets.

Not pleasant weather, but some very good, even spectacular, birding.
(There was no Des Moines Marina monitoring this weekend.)

Maureen Ellis me2 at u.washington.edu Univ of WA and Des Moines, WA