Tuesday evening I went out to Shilshole Bay, to the beach behind West Marine and the Ballard Elks Club; I went to look for the birds Cliff Drake had reported, and also to check on the state of the martin boxes on the pilings. Things were pretty quiet, but the weather was gorgeous.
Today I took a boat through the locks and up past Edmonds; near Pt Wells I found at least a thousand Bonaparte's gulls busily feeding on the water's surface around 10am. Most were about a half mile offshore; by noon most had moved out of sight. Dall porpoise, red necked and western grebe, brant, barrow's goldeneye, double crested cormorant, and pigeon guillemot were also observed.

Kevin Li
Ballard, USA
kdli at msn.com