Hello Tweets,

Today my mother and I birded mainly Pacific Co, with some birding in Grays
Harbor Co, mainly in the Elma-Brady area to and from our destination in the
Tokeland-Grayland areas, as we encountered at total of 96 species for the
entire day, and weather conditions consisted of mostly cloudy to partly
sunny skies at times, with minor rain showers, only near Grayland, then on
our way home along Hwy.12 near Elma in the late afternoon.The best
highlight, among many others, and for a spring arrival was 12 TREE SWALLOWS
at the Schouweiler Rd.-Chehalis Wildlife area, just west of Elma, being our
last species of the day at 4pm, which this location surprisingly has proved
to produce early swallows in past years, as today they were observed
actively foraging over the extensive wetland, as the temperature began to
fall rapidly, as we left.

We started our day along the west end of Brady Loop Rd., where the immature
RED-SHOULDERED HAWK was present at 8:30am, perched in an alder tree, before
flying into thicker vegetation along a creek, as observed in the same
vicinity as other previous reports. A WESTERN SCRUB JAY was noted along
Hwy.12 at Montesano, as we headed west towards Grayland.

At 9:45am we arrived at the west end of Midway Beach Rd., which we birded
until 11:45am, (until oncoming rain showers persisted, as we left, coming
from the south), as we hiked and scoured the beach shoreline, south of the
road to the brown marked signs indicating "No vehicles beyond this point",
where several beachcombers were present, flying kites, and driving along the
beach, north of the signs. Our main highlights here included great views and
photographes of both SNOWY PLOVERS and SNOW BUNTINGS with numbers, and
following notable highlights as followed during our visit:

32 SNOWY PLOVERS
25 SEMIPALMATED PLOVERS
24 Sanderlings
2 LEAST SANDPIPERS
25 HORNED LARKS
30 SNOW BUNTINGS

At 12:15pm we arrived at Tokeland, with incoming high tide already present
being an 11.0, and most of the available shoreline covered by water, with
improving conditions, and minor wind, as we birded the Tokeland Marina, Toke
Point, and west shoreline areas, with the following highlights:

1 Peregrine Falcon
13 WILLETS
240 MARBLED GODWITS
2 WHIMBRELS
24 WESTERN SANDPIPERS
280 Dunlin
2 Black-bellied Plovers
32 Sanderlings
9 BLACK-LEGGED KITTIWAKES
2 Varied Thrushes
1 PALM WARBLER
4 Lincoln's Sparrows

After leaving Tokeland, we headed back towards Brady Loop Rd., and stopped
along S.R.109 at MP 16, where 16 TRUMPETER SWANS, and a single Cooper's Hawk
were noted along the Cedar River. Back at Brady Loop Rd. at 2:30pm, we
birded the entire loop, and ran into Bill and Tim Shelmerdine, then
continued birding until about 3:35pm, where we relocated the RED-SHOULDERED
HAWK at 3:30pm, at the same location as this morning. Other highlights along
the entire loop of Brady Loop Rd. included:

13 "Dusky" Canada Geese
3 "ALEUTIAN" Canada Geese
65 "Cackling"Canada Geese
4 TRUMPETERS SWANS
68 TUNDRA SWANS
1 EURASIAN WIGEON
1 ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK
1 Merlin
1 AM.KESTREL(along Hwy12, after the Satsop River Bridge)
27 Black-bellied Plovers
16 Dunlin
4 WESTERN MEADOWLARKS

On our way home, as mentioned earlier, we stopped by the Schouweiler Rd.
wetland, and located 12 TREE SWALLOWS, feeding above the wetland, and
observed a pair of TRUMPETER SWANS, and a calling Virginia Rail in a
seperate portion of the extensive wetland, among 12 Ring-necked Ducks, and 3
Common Goldeneyes, then 42 TRUMPETER SWANS were observed resting in a grassy
field at Elma, north of Hwy.12.

Good birding,

Ruth and Patrick Sullivan
GODWIT at worldnet.att.net