Hello Tweets,

Stephanie Dosch and Mike Andersen, a friend of mine visiting from New York
and myself birded Ocean Shores and vicinity today, spending a good amount of
time on the jetty. After reading the Bird Box transcriptions, I was psyched
to find the nominate pribilof Island race of Rock Sandpiper there. And did
we find Rock Sandpipers, with at least 10 birds in scattered groups on the
jetty. We encountered a possible candidate for the nominate race bird. It
was quite large and pale in comparison to our regular C. p. tschuktschorum
variety that normally winter on Washington rocks and jettys. The bill looked
slightly more downcurved, Dunlinish I guess you can say. I also noticed that
in flight, it had a very broad white wing stripe. I took many photographs of
the bird, and of our normal variety. Also some side-by-side comparisons
between the two varietys. I found after the fact that the pribilof race has
white edges of the tail all the way to the end, a mark I did not look for.
Full frame photos were obtained though, I hope they can show something from
it.
It was a very cool bird! Rock Sandpipers are always a treat to see, and
photograph from close range!

Other notables in the area:
1 Black-legged Kittiwake from the jetty
almost 200 Surfbirds on the jetty
1 Cackling Canada Goose at the O.S. STP.
also what looked like a Richardson's variety Canada Goose with the cackler.
Slightly larger with larger bill than the cackler. Lacking the purple/dusky
tinge to the breast. Looked typical Canada Goose colored. It was quite
small, not much larger than the Cackler it was with. I'm not very good with
the races of CAGO, so any input would be appreciated.
We also had 5 Trumpeter Swans east of Tokeland in a river mouth of sorts to
Willapa Bay.
Mike was also quite taken with the Sooty Fox Sparrows, as he had only seen
the red variety. But he was more blown away with our dark Song Sparrows. I
just told him they are the norm for me and his light eastern birds would
probably fool me for something else at first, too.

Ran into Ruth and Patrick Sullivan, and Dave Hayden who were birding the
area. I'm sure they covered more area than we did, as our day was spent
trying to find some new birds for Mike, and to check out the Prib. Rock
Piper. We looked throughout the game range for Snowy Owl, but came up empty.


Ah birding by subspecies, gotta love it!
Good Birding

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