Jason Starfire, Sam Terry, Charlie Wright and myself spent the better part of
all day today birding various locations in Lewis County, Yakima County,
Pacific County, Gray's Harbor County, and Thurston County.

THURSTON COUNTY
We officially started our day at 11:30PM on the 17th in Olympia, where we
quickly stopped off on the side of the road and heard a pair (saw 1) of
BARRED OWLS.

also at the end of the day today, we had a flyby SHARP-SHINNED HAWK near the
Evergreen State College.

LEWIS COUNTY
After about 4 hours of sleep at my place, we headed down to Packwood where we
met up with Bob Pearson for some birding in the area. Here are the sightings
on various forest roads in the area:
VARIED THRUSH, GRAY JAYS, BAND-TAILED PIGEONS,
GREAT HORNED OWL - 1 hooting
SPOTTED OWL - 2 adults with 1 young

White Pass Burn: we had 5 BLACK-BACKED WOODPECKERS, 2 sets of males feeding
a young bird, and 1 other bird calling in the distance.
Numerous CLARK'S NUTCRACKERS, HERMIT THRUSH, MACGILLIVRAY'S WARBLERS,
TOWNSEND'S WARBLERS, 1 each of NASHVILLE, ORANGE-CROWNED, and YELLOW-RUMPED.
Also in the burn was at least 1 MOUNTAIN BLUEBIRD. (male)

YAKIMA COUNTY
A quick stop at the White Pass Campground yielded 1 juvenile male
WILLIAMSON'S SAPSUCKER sticking its head out of the nest hole at campsite 8,
and the adult male was close by aswell.

After this, we headed to Tokeland to attempt for the Godwit.

PACIFIC COUNTY
in Tokeland, we stopped at the flats by the RV park pulloff south of the
marina, and there we had about:
30 LONG-BILLED CURLEW
6 SEMIPALMATED PLOVERS
80+ WHIMBREL
a few large flocks of Western-type peeps.
At the marina's breakwater, we had a large godwit flock, many more godwits
there than the previous two days I had been there, with alot less Whimbrel on
the jetty. We were there not more than 5 minutes, when Jason calls out that
he has the BAR-TAILED GODWIT in his scope. and sure enough, Sam and I both
got on the bird and that was it. My best views of this bird of the 3
straight days I have made the trip to Tokeland. Today I could really see the
bars on the tail standing out, as it was more alone and not so tucked away
behind all the Whimbrel/marbled godwits. Also as Sam pointed out to us, the
Black speckling on the scapulars of the Bar-tailed really stood out aswell.

GRAYS HARBOR COUNTY
We quickly stopped at Bottle Beach, the tide had really receded by the time
we arrived 7:00 PM and alot of the shorebirds were farther out, though we had
some goodies:
a few RUDDY TURNSTONES among the BLACK-BELLIED PLOVER flocks, and Sam found a
RED KNOT still in partial breeding plumage.

Good Birding ya'll
Ryan Shaw
Lacey, WA
RTShaw80 at aol.com
http://hometown.aol.com//rtshaw80/index.html