Hey tweets, John and I twitched ourselves down to the North Jetty at 4 this
morning to look for the Mountain Plover. With all due apologies to Gary
Fredericks, we more than halfway expected to find a Mongolian Plover, due
to habitat (we just couldn't feature a Mountain Plover on the beach) - not
that that would have disappointed us. But no, Gary was exactly right. The
plover really is a Mountain Plover and it's right where he said it was.
When we found it this morning, it was back up in the dunes, about 50 meters
away from the sanderling flock (which numbered in the hundreds). It stayed
hidden behind very small dunes and detritus for quite a while, but when it
finally popped up, it was not shy. I got great looks at less than 10 feet
in perfect light. Meanwhile John was scoping out the jetty, looking at
gulls and surf. After half an hour, he *finally* wandered over, along with
our scope and two more birders, Ann Musche and Alan Richards. We all spent
the next hour following the plover. It was most obliging, showing us every
view, front, back, sides, in flight. At one point, it decided to walk right
in front of us, gallery style, but it didn't quite trust us. So it walked
sideways while keeping its eyes directly on us, kind of like Groucho Marx
exiting stage right.

If you want a good description of this bird, check out Gary's original
post. I will add that the bird shows a pale buff wash across the chest, a
white chin, a bit of buff on the edges of the wing feathers (creating a
slight scaly look, though nothing as scaly as a golden plover), slight
vertical striping on the cheek patches, an overall warm brown look, and a
very slight pink cast to the pale gray legs.

It was a bit unclear from Gary's post as to whether this bird was with the
sanderling flock when he saw it, but we did not find it accompanying the
sanderlings. It was strictly alone. It did go down to the beach closer to
where the waves were washing ashore and where the sanderlings were
foraging, but it did not associate with other birds. I think it was finding
plenty to eat, so maybe it will stick around for awhile. But it looked very
vulnerable to passing raptors. If you want to see this bird, my advice is,
go sooner not later.

One word of caution: watch out for the storm surge. As far back as I was
from the ocean,I was still almost flooded when a big set piled up and then
came in all at once. Almost immediately, the water filled all the
depressions around me and created quite a fast-running channel, which
lasted for at least 10 minutes before the water seeped back into the sand
and disappeared. I was isolated on what became a sand island. Naturally,
that's just when John showed up with the scope. He couldn't reach me for
some time, which was frustrating. Luckily, the plover was stuck on my
island too and seemed perfectly happy to forage near my feet.

A final word: this bird was worth the drive, and would have been worth
getting wet for too. It was beautiful. - Connie, Seattle

csidles at mail.isomedia.com