........Went to the Long Beach peninsula area this weekend on the Wash.
coast. Drove quickly around Julia Butler Hansen Whitetail-deer Refuge by
Cathlamet, Wash. Birding was pretty quiet......lots of Swallows:Tree,
Barn, and Cliff Swallows. Fluttering around with them were quite a
number of Am. Goldfinches, House and a few Purple Finches, and several
species of sparrows. 2 Ospreys were spotted along with hawks, a Turkey
Vulture, and other more mundane birds. Cinnamon Teals males still very
bright. More birds would have been spotted had I got out of my car and
done some 'serious walking and looking'.
.......Cloudy and cool alond the beach. Gulls, Caspian Terns, and Blue
Herons were pretty much it!!! 'Peeps' were totally absent, even on a
very low tide Willapa Bay. Another birder I met was also surprised by
the absence of the usual small shorebirds. Saw many, many birds(hundreds
and hundreds) both Sat. evening and sun. afternoon) fly north about
500-600 ft off shore, but wasn't able to identify them with only a 10
x50 bino. They very well could have been the northward migration of
Common Murres, that has been happening the last few weeks. Saw a number
of Brown Pelicans and 3 Brandt's Cormorants fly 'south' at the same
time.
.......Among the interesting things I saw while walking were: one large
beached Sea Lion(long dead), several dead Murres, a very large(sea??)
beetle--grayish-black in color, that was about 21/2-3'' long...washed in
by the receeding ocean tide it seems. A search on Nat'l Audubon
Society's Field Guide to No. Am Insects and Spiders showed mamy beetles
and water bugs, but nothing that fit the description. Maybe someone can
tell me if he oe she has ever saw something like this. Also saw a gull
with a smaller 'clam' tightly clasped to its right leg!!!!!! It was able
to fly around with this thing hooked to its leg, so I guess the gull has
been managing OK with its 'extra baggage'!!!!
.......Also were a sizable number of large Canada Geese on south Willapa
Bay, part of a much larger contingent of Canadas that nest in the area.
.............Not a fantastic birding report, but certainly did enjoy my
R & R after a long and harried week at work.

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