Hey Tweets. Today Carol Schulz and I decided to go twitch the Palm
Warblers and Tropical Kingbird at Ocean Shores, with great success! We got to
the Ocean Shores Marina at around 11:00AM. When we arrived, the kingbirds
were nowhere to be seen. So I decided to walk over to the side of the marina
which is very close to the Damon Point Parking Lot where there is a lot of
Scotch Broom and started pishing. I walked behind a picnic table and flushed
2 PALM WARBLERS from the ground, both of which landed on a bush in clear view
and wagged their tail at me. The birds continued working the brush in this
area while we walked over to Damon Point, where we met a group of birders
that had seen 3 Tropical Kingbirds just a half hour before we arrived!
So we walked quickly back to the marina and started working the telephone
poles. After a little while of searching, 3 robin-sized birds flew in and
landed on the telephone wires right above us and started flycatching
kingbird-style! The 3 TROPICAL KINGBIRDS stuck around this area (just on the
Damon Point side of the hotel) for a while, giving great scope views to us,
and then flew to the wires close to the street. After an hour of watching
these birds a PEREGRINE FALCON spooked the shorebirds at the base of Damon
Point, which spooked one of the kingbirds and made it call. It was very good
to hear the birds call and know for sure that none of them are Couch's. The
birds usually perched on the wires but occasionally flycatched from the top
of bushes, one time perching about 10 feet from me! Two of the birds I saw
appeared to be juveniles based on the fresh look to them and the fairly bold
bars on the tersials and primaries, the other looked to be a worn adult.
Bills were quite long and fairly thin, wing pattern contrasty, tails forked,
tail dark brown/blackish with no white. Dusty green back, a bit greener than
Western. Breast green, belly bright banana yellow. At this time it started to
rain and the kingbirds left the area for a while. During this time I went
back over to where we had seen the PALM WARBLERS earlier and this time got 3
of them. Very good shorebirds were seen at the base of Damon Point. Tens of
thousands of DUNLIN were wheeling close to the water, with 1 LEAST SANDPIPER
and around 1000 SANDERLINGS mixed in. Flying above us were 20 BLACK-BELLIED
PLOVERS, 10 COMMON SNIPE, and 1 late SEMIPALMATED PLOVER. Now I walked over
to the true marina and viewed the logs here finding 60 WESTERN SANDPIPERS, 20
BLACK TURNSTONES, 2 HERRING GULLS, and 3 MEW GULLS. 2 late VIOLET-GREEN
SWALLOWS flew over. The 3 TROPICAL KINGBIRDS were now flycatching from the
planted pine trees here. In a flock of 40 CANADA GEESE we found 3 GREATER
WHITE-FRONTEDS.
So we left all these birds for now and headed to the game range, where
there are small jetty rocks going out a ways in the water. Here we found 4
WHITE-WINGED SCOTERS, many SURF SCOTERS, and around 30 BLACK SCOTERS. There
were also small numbers of RED-THROATED LOONS here and 1 "CACKLING"
CANADA-GOOSE. After viewing here for a while we headed back to the marina
once again to find 1 kingbird still there. We stopped at the Damon Point
parking lot and 2 PALM WARBLERS flew across the road, most likely the same
ones we saw earlier in this general area.
On our way home we stopped quickly at the Hoquium STP where we saw very
large numbers of ducks including around 300 CANVASBACKS, 50 LESSER SCAUPS, 30
GREATER SCAUPS, 14 BUFFLEHEADS, etc.

Birds seen/heard:
1. Red-throated Loon
2. Pacific Loon
3. Common Loon
4. Red-necked Grebe
5. Horned Grebe
6. Pied-billed Grebe
7. Western Grebe
8. Brown Pelican
9. Double-crested Cormorant
10. Pelagic Cormorant
11. Brandt's Cormorant
12. Great-blue Heron
13. Canada Goose
14. Greater White-fronted Goose
15. Mallard
16. Gadwall
17. Northern Pintail
18. American Wigeon
19. Northern Shoveler
20. Green-winged Teal
21. Canvasback
22. Ring-necked Duck
23. Greater Scaup
24. Lesser Scaup
25. Surf Scoter
26. Black Scoter
27. White-winged Scoter
28. Bufflehead
29. Hooded Merganser
30. Common Merganser
31. Ruddy Duck
32. Northern Harrier
33. Red-tailed Hawk
34. Bald Eagle
35. Peregrine Falcon
36. American Coot
37. Black-bellied Plover
38. Semipalmated Plover
39. Killdeer
40. Black Turnstone
41. Sanderling
42. Dunlin
43. Western Sandpiper
44. Least Sandpiper
45. Common Snipe
46. Mew Gull
47. Ring-billed Gull
48. California Gull
49. Herring Gull
50. Glaucous-winged Gull
51. Western Gull
52. Heerman's Gull
53. Rock Dove
54. Band-tailed Pigeon
55. Belted Kingfisher
56. Red-breasted Sapsucker
57. Northern Flicker
58. TROPICAL KINGBIRD
59. Steller's Jay
60. Common Raven
61. American Crow
62. Horned Lark
63. VIOLET-GREEN SWALLOW
64. Chestnut-backed Chickadee
65. Bushtit
66. Bewick's Wren
67. Marsh Wren
68. Golden-crowned Kinglet
69. Ruby-crowned Kinglet
70. American Robin
71. Eurasian Starling
72. Cedar Waxwing
73. Yellow-rumped Warbler
74. PALM WARBLER
75. Spotted Towhee
76. Savannah Sparrow
77. Golden-crowned Sparrow
78. White-crowned Sparrow
79. Fox Sparrow
80. Song Sparrow
81. Dark-eyed Junco
82. Red-winged Blackbird
83. House Finch
84. Red Crossbill
85. Pine Sisken
86. American Goldfinch
87. House Sparrow

Good Birding!

http://hometown.aol.com/birdking88/index.html
Birdking88 at aol.com
Charlie W. Wright
Sumner, WA
Age 12