Columbia Estuary Report - 8/25/1999

The STILT SANDPIPER was apparently relocated on the Necanicum Estuary
at least on Monday. Large numbers of shorebirds are being seen there
and on Stanley Lake. 43 BAND-TAILED PIGEONS were congregated on the
Necanicum Flats on Wednesday. I'm not sure what they were eating,
but it wasn't GHOST SHRIMP. Two GREAT EGRETS are on the Neawanna,
most often behind the Strip Mall.

A noisey PILEATED WOODPECKER was in the parking lot at Ecola Pt.

A BONAPARTE'S GULL and RED-NECKED PHALAROPE were on Trestle Bay
at parking lot D.

The smell of fall is in the air, but you wouldn't know it from
movements of passerines. There has been a dispersal of WILSON'S
WARBLERS and BLACK-THROATED GRAY WARBLERS, but no real evidence of
migration at the favored fallout spots at Ft. Stevens.

Shorebird Counts 8/25/1999
Stanley Lake
Killdeer 12
Greater Yellowlegs 1
Western Sandpiper 300
Least Sandpiper 250

Necanicum
Semipalmated Plover 40
Western Sandpiper 80
Least Sandpiper 100
Red-necked Phalarope 1

--
Mike Patterson The common view of science is that it is a sort of machine
Astoria, OR for increasing the race's store of dependable facts.
mpatters at oregonvos.net It is that only in part; in even larger part
it is a machine for upsetting undependable facts.

----- H.L.Mencken
http://www.pacifier.com/~mpatters/bird/bird.html