Hello Marcus,
You proable the only birder who spotted the HUDSONIAN GODWIT this
weekend.The reason i respond to you message, i found it verry hard to find
this bird on 9-26 in Tokeland.Patrick found it first,(and let me hanging to
find it. ) Like you say the colour of this bird was kind of muddy brownich
gray as you say have the head tucked in most of the time you could not see
the Eyeline. One have to be verry good in Shorebirds to identify this bird
in sitting tide.You barley see the black on the tail when roosten. But
preening or lifting his or her legs there is no mistake. A friend of mine
was there Saturday also and din't find this bird. Alkso i had a group of
birders what went twice and both times could not find this bird. With all
the Hudsonian Godwit's i have on my list 4 in Washington and 5 in Nova
Scotia where there are common, this was one of the dullest i came across.
Ruth Sullivan
Tacoma
godwit at worldnet.att.net
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> From: Roening, Marcus (US Sales) <MDR51044 at glaxowellcome.com>
> To: 'Tweeters' <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
> Cc: 'Rogers, Russell' <rrogers at halcyon.com>
> Subject: Bottle Beach & Tokeland
> Date: Monday, October 11, 1999 7:57 AM
>
> On Sunday, Heather and I enjoyed a leisurely trek out to Tokeland and
Bottle
> Beach - there are definite advantages to a 2:00pm high tide.
>
> We arrived at Bottle Beach (east of Westport) at 12:00 and found the tide
in
> far enough that the most of the birds were close to shore. The ruler of
the
> roost was a nice adult PEREGRINE FALCON. Scattered across the mudflats
> were:
> 300+ Black-bellied Plovers
> 12 Semipalmated Plovers
> 20 Sanderlings
> 12 Least Sandpipers
> 20 Western Sandpipers
>
> On the coast side just north of Tokeland (near the RV park) we spotted:
> 5 Long-billed Curlews
> 1 Whimbrel
> 15 Black-bellied Plovers
> 10 Caspian Terns
>
> The near sandspit was just starting to go under water, so I'd recommend
> getting there at least 1 hour before high tide. Otherwise they move out
> quite aways to the far sandspit, but you can still identify most of the
> birds with a good scope.
>
> At about 2:00pm we started are search for the Hudsonian Godwit, amongst
the
> 300+ MARBLED GODWITS. Maybe it was the latest of the day and the cloudy
> weather, but this was one sedate group of Godwits. For the next 2 hours
> various birders rotated through and the godwits barely even raised their
> heads. In the meantime we were able to tease out of the rip rap
boulders:
> 3 Whimbrels - they roosted at the top edge of the rip rap
> 30 Long-billed Dowitchers
> 14 Willets
> and finally the flock rose into the air. We were ready and figured the
> white rump patch would be an easy mark and boy were we wrong. Between
the
> flashing white wings stripes of the Willets and the white rump patches of
> the Dowitchers, there was quite a bit of white flashing in the flock and
> just when we thought we saw the Hudsonian the flock would wheel back in a
> different direction. It turned out to be a very humbling experience. My
> saving grace in all this was that I was able to pick out all the
Whimbrels.
> Fortunately, the flock did come back and as the settled back into roost
we
> saw a white rump flash, along with a big bill - the HUSDONIAN GODWIT at
> last.
>
> This bird was not all that easy to pick out of the crowd. While it was
> paler than the MAGO, it was still brown, but lacked the reddish tones.
It
> had a nice distinct white eyeline, but it liked to keep its head tucked
way
> in most of the time we were watching. The bill was bi-colored and
appeared
> shorter than the bills of the MAGO standing next to it. The body size
> seemed only slightly smaller. At roost the best distinguishing feature
was
> the black tail feathers that could be seen when the bird stood sideways
(but
> the bird loved to taunt us by roosting with its breast towards us). The
> white rump was observed when it first landed and preened itself.
>
> Good luck in checking this bird out. We did take turns wandering the
> neighborhood for a WHITE-WINGED DOVE that had been spotted next to the
> Marina on Friday, but no luck. Does a lone Rock Dove count?
>
> Good Birding,
>
> Marcus Roening Tacoma,WA
> MDR51044 at GlaxoWellcome.com
>