Subject: A late Willapa Bay Shorebird post
Date: Aug 16 10:09:40 1999
From: Jesse Ellis - ellis at lclark.edu



Hey Tweeters-
Here's a post about birds. My name is Jesse Ellis, and this is
my post post to tweeters, though I've been subscribed for a month off
and on. I'm a student at Lewis
& Clark College in Portland OR, originally from Minnesota, and I've been
doing a research internship with a professor here. Anyway, we were
studying Western Sandpipers at Willapa Bay, and I thought I report a bit
of what we saw. If anyone has any questions please email and I can
possibly tell you a bit more about what we saw and what we were doing.
Thanks.
We were based in Bay Center on the east side of the bay, and
watched birds right on the Bay and at the mouth of the Palix River, on the
east side of the peninsula (check a GOOD map).

Mid-July, fairly good numbers (in the hundreds on some days) of both Least
and adult Westerns. The highlight was a wierd sandpiper which I am
certain was a melanistic (or something, aberrant, at least;)) Least
Sandpiper. THe bird was plumaged exactly like a Least but had a reddish
cast ALL OVER its feathers. Any feedback on this bird would be great.
Are deviations like this common?
Also, late in the second week of July, a flock of 700 Short-billed Dows
and 300 Whimbrel.

Late July, large numbers of Whimbrels and Black-bellied Plovers, as well
as several thousand short-billed dowitchers. These petered out in the
beginning of August, but then the imm. Westerns hit. THere were still
significant numbers of Black-bellied Plovers and some smaller flocks in
the 20s-40s of SB Dows hanging out, too. We also saw good numbers (up to
a hundred at a time) of Semipalmated Plovers, which were often in
association with Westerns. In the second week of Aug, we found a flock of
almost 200 Sanderlings in the Bay, which seemed to me to be an unusually
large number for that sort of mucky environment. We pulled 2 Baird's out
of a flock of 400 WESP and SEPL a week ago, too.

A last note. On the 26th of July, two Parasitic Jaegers were harrassing
Caspian Terns in the Bay. A lifer for me!

Email with questions. Thanks!

Jesse Ellis, Lewis & CLark College
ellis at lclark.edu