Had a pretty decent day out on the coast today encircling Gray's Harbor. I
birded the Ocean Shores Peninsula, Hoquiam Sewage Treatment Plant, John's
River, and Tokeland. Weather was cloudy with periods of drizzle. Very cold
I must say. But I was out birding, something I haven't been doing so often
as of late.
I didn't cover all I wanted, as I had little time, so most of my time was
rushed in places.

HIGHLIGHTS:

Hoquiam STP:
CANVASBACK - at least 500 a conservative estimate, I've never seen so many
CANV in one small location.
LESSER SCAUP - 200
GREATER SCAUP - 50+

Ocean Shores Jetty:
SURFBIRD - 40
BLACK TURNSTONE - 20
ROCK SANDPIPER - 4

Ocean Shores STP/Jetty behind STP
THAYER'S GULL - 6
HERRING GULL - 10
WESTERN GULL - 300
GLAUCOUS-WINGED GULL - 200
CALIFORNIA GULL - 30
MEW GULL - 25
HARLEQUIN DUCK - 5, 3 Alt. Males, 2 Females
WHITE-WINGED SCOTER
BLACK SCOTER

Bottle Beach- There was absolutely no beach exposed at all
BLACK-BELLIED PLOVERS - 4, all sittiong on pilings
SOOTY FOX SPARROW - 1
WINTER WRENS - 4

John's River
AMERICAN WIGEON - 500+
EURASIAN WIGEON - 14: at least 12 males and 2 rufous Females

Tokeland
MARBLED GODWIT - 340
No Bar-tailed Godwits, have moved on apparently. It was an extremely high
tide, the Godwits were all sitting on the docks. No sign of the Avocet.
WILLET - 8
WHIMBREL - 4
PALM WARBLER - 2

Brady Loop:
ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK - 1

Tis all for the week, now to get some studying done.

Ryan Shaw
Lacey, WA
RTShaw80 at aol.com
http://hometown.aol.com//rtshaw80/index.html