............................Hiked way up the ocean beach north of
Oysterville Rd. at north part of Long Beach Peninsula, Wash. Sat. aft.
The tide was low when walking north, and...the beach was devoid of
shorebirds. Hiking back when high tide was coming in was much more
fruitful in terms of seeing multitudes of shorebirds:

Zillions of Sanderlings, many still in breeding colors
Black-bellied Plovers, many in process of eclipse.
1 Ruddy Turnstone
1 Black Turnstone
California and Glaucous-winged Gulls
Good numbers of Caspian Terns
Brown Pelicans
............Not a single Sandpiper to be seen!!!!

and.....1 Bald Eagle flying overhead

............Went walking up the west beach of Willapa Bay to the salt
marshes earlySun. aft.as the tide was receding:

1 Great Blue Heron
Zillions of Western Sandpipers
A number of Least Sandpipers with them
2 slightly larger sandpipers with yellow legs, and faint whitish streak
behind eye, bigger and more rusty than Least.---Looked like juv.
Sharp-tailed Sandpiper in bird manual. Are Sharptails normally seen in
late summer migrations in this area????
6 Black-bellied Plovers
50-60 Semipalmated Plovers
2 Lesser Yellowlegs
1 Greater Yellowlegs
12 Dowitcher(bigger size, coloration, and longer looking-bill indicated
Long-billed Dowitchers. However......salt water usually not to their
liking,and not being close enough to see spots(like Short-bills) or
barring on their breasts, we will leave ID as simply *Dowitcher*.)
.............Another question: Are Long-bills ever observed feeding on
salt-water mud flats??? I'm so full of questions tonight, but having so
much yet to learn that it seems no harm to glean off the wisdoms of
other more-experienced birders.

Cheers!!!!!!

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