Tweets,
Apparently fate decided to lift a jinx for once. After five years of being
"the place the sharp-tailed wasn't" and countless times of chasing other
people's Sharp-tailed I decided to sign up for Bruce's trip to Ocean
Shores with the Theory of Good time of year+good place to look+enough
skilled birders=A better than average chance of finding a Sharpie.
We headed out on the game range off of Tonquin Ave. We encountered two
pecs. no Sharpie with them. We continued to scour the range with no more
pecs to be found. As Ryan Shaw and I ventured out near the salicornia edge
of the slough we continued to look.
Suddendly Ryan flushed a "pec-ish" bird and we watched it drop into a mud
patch about 30 feet in front of us. The bird turned around and standing
before me was a bird with a burnt orange crown, prominent supercilium and
the translucent pumkin wash that I had been searching for years to see.
I had finally found a Sharp-tailed, the bird remained still while we put
it in the scope and viewed the bird. Then we motioned to the rest of the
group frantically to come and see this jewel.
As the group was about half way to us the bird flushed and fled into one
of the numerous little tidal channels. We watched the bird go down,
confident of being able to show this lifer to the rest of the group. As
the group proceeded forward we stumbled upon four more pecs; a single
bird and a group of three but no sharpie to be seen.
We made one last attempt to walk the backside of the slough in hopes of
finding the bird. As I approached the edge of the salicornia near the end
of the area a bird run on to the mud and I was quickly able to see that
this was our bird. The bird then went still, hunkered down so that only
the head was visible. About half of our group got the bird this time. Then
suddendly the bird rose up out of the hunkered position and rose up into
the sky eventually landing near the extreme eastern end of the range.
It may sound corny, but I have come to the realization that sometimes you
just have to wait until the right time when you are suppossed to get that
elusive lifer. The pursuit while infuriating and exhausting makes that
time when you finally see it all the more special.
So what was my reward? Well parking in the sandy shoulder at Bill's Spit
(our next stop) and getting stuck and waiting for a tow truck to pull my
truck out!
As a final cap to the day Ryan and I headed down to Tokeland to try and
refind the Hudsonian that Ryan had found earlier. The bird was resting on
the jetty with the other Marbleds. A very nice day indeed.

Scott Downes
sdownes at u.washington.edu
Seattle WA

"Birds don't read bird books. (That's why they are seen doing things they
are not supposed to do)." -Mary Wood


On Sun, 3 Oct 1999 Lftpitcher at aol.com wrote:

> Well the WOS trip was a success in that we were able to pull out a
> Sharp-tailed Sandpiper at the game range. Other than that, shorebirds were
> rather scarce.
> Other interesting birds seen were Lapland Longspurs, lots of American Pipits,
> a Pink-footed Shearwater from the jetty.
>
> Sorry so brief, I'm sure someone will go a bit deeper into what we all saw.
> In the meantime, gotta hit the books!
> Good birding
>
> Ryan Shaw
> Lacey, WA
> Lftpitcher at aol.com
>