Tweeters,

On Monday a group of us from The Bird Feeder in Tacoma, went to Ft Flagler
State Park for sea bird searching. We left Tacoma at 8:00 and headed up the
Kitsap Peninsula. Driving through Bremerton we knew it was going to be a good
day as there were plenty of birds on the water including Northern Pintail
(tough to ID much at 50 mph). someone in the group wanted to stop & try to
find the Orcas reported nesr Bremerton. We stopped in Tracyton on Dyass
Passage at the public boat ramp and got a view of the whales across the
passage. There were lots of people there but the whales were about as far
across the water as they could be but were still visible. Scopes proved to be
invavluable. We also saw am wigeon, common loons, western and horned grebes,
great blue heron, and mallards.

Next we stopped at Kitsap Memorial Park where we saw golden crowned and ruby
crowned kinglets, rufus-backed chicadees, cedax waxwings, robins, and "noisy
crows". On the water we had more wigeon, surf anf white-winged scoters, more
grebes and loons and a belted kingfisher. We next stopped by the Hood Canal
Bridge in hopes of seeing a parasitic jaeger reported in the area. No such
luck but we did see a red-necked grebe and a black scoter.

About 12:30 we got to Ft Flagler State Park. As we piled out of the van with
lunch bags in hand we saw some shore birds running around on the grass near
waters edge. we were all bins in one hand and a sandwich in the other. We
ended up in a lively debate over what we were watching. We decided it was a
mixed flock of western and least sandpipers with a few black bellied plovers
thrown in. About hen someone yelled "old squaw" and our attention turned to
the water. We all got a good view of 4 old squaws about 150 yards of shore.
We also saw lots of harlequin ducks, surf and white-winged scoters, pelagic
and double crested cormorants as well as mallards and wigeon.

A couple of the group walked out toward the end of the spit and reported
sanderling and dunlin there. We headed out and saw these species as well as a
few black turnstones!

On the way out of the park we stopped at the parade field and watched 9 deer
keeping the grass trimmed. We also got a glimpse of a red tailed hawk an a
bald eagle enroute to the park.

All in all we had a very good day. The waether held, so we stayed dry and we
saw most of what we were looking for plus more.

Phil Kelley
Lacey, WA
scrbjay at aol.com