They seem to be at Bottle Beach. I saw thousands of them yesterday and have
heard similar reports from earlier this week.

As far as I know the 300 we saw on Wednesday at Bowerman Basin were the
largest flock of Westerns seen so far this spring. So hopefully, it's the
beginning.

Bruce Fischer
Aberdeen, WA
stump at techline.com

Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2001 17:08:10 -0700
From: Doug Plummer <dplummer at dougplummer.com>
To: tweeters at u.washington.edu
Subject: Where are the shorebirds?
Message-ID: <5.0.2.1.2.20010426170708.00aaab00 at mx.serv.net>

I birded Bowerman Basin and Ocean Shores on 4/25, and was startled by the
absence of shorebirds at Bowerman. There was a maximum of, maybe, 300-400
Westerns and a handful of SB Dowitchers and a stray Semipal Plover here and
there. What gives? Is migration late this year, or is there another area of
Grays Harbor that is the preferred high hide roost now? I recall this week
20 years ago when bird numbers were 3 orders of magnitude greater at
Bowerman.

Of note were great movements of Brant. Many flocks of 100-300 birds moving
north seen throughout the day. In one flock, that flew over the pond at
Paulson Road, were two Snow Geese.

Doug Plummer
Seattle, WA
mailto:dplummer at dougplummer.com