Columbia Estuary Report - 9/7/97

Well as if things couldn't get less bird friendly here on the
Columbia Estuary... this morning there was a steady east wind
blowing.

The Lower Columbia Birders took their monthly walk yesterday and
the bird list was slow in forming. An immature BLACK-CROWNED
NIGHT-HERON was seen flying over Battery Russell. A probable
WESTERN FLYCATCHER was among the many shy passerines at the
bikepath.

At parking lot D an AMERICAN GOLDEN-PLOVER and a PACIFIC GOLDEN-
PLOVER allowed us adequate comparisons. 20 or so SEMIPALMATED
PLOVERS and perhaps 30 LEAST SANDPIPERS were the only other
shorebirds. We saw about 50,000 SOOTY SHEARWATERS were moving in
a steady stream northward just beyond the breakers.

Of course today, when I am out to do an official count, the wind
is blowing east and most of the shearwaters are waaay out on the
horizon. After doing an official seawatch (see separate post), I
went out to the the bend in the jetty for a closer look at stuff.
A MOURNING DOVE was between benchmark stations 47 and 55 (about
.5 miles out) and a WINTER WREN was beyond station 55. It is not
unusual to find migrants making first landfall on the jetty. And
as long as we're on unsual migrants. It appears the the short-
bodied red DRAGONFLIES are moving in along the jetty. They were
100's all headed east on the jetty (though I can't rule out this
being an artifact of the wind direction). And some sort of
ADMIRAL-TYPE BUTTERFLY was coming in off the ocean in some
numbers.

But back to seabirds. 1 CASPIAN TERN seems to be hanging on at
the south jetty. There were quite a few COMMON MURRES near
the jetty. Over than 2000 SOOTY SHEARWATERS were milling around
the end of the jetty attended by huge numbers of HERRMANN'S GULLS,
CALIFORNIA GULLS and a scattering of BLACK-LEGGED KITTIWAKES.
A small group of ARCTIC TERNS was seen during the official count,
but no Elegants or jaegers to go with them.



--
********************************* I am but mad north-north-west;
* Mike Patterson, Astoria, OR * when the wind is southerly,
* mpatters at orednet.org * I know a hawk from a handsaw.
http://www.pacifier.com/~mpatters -ws