Hello Tweets,

Today my mother and I spent a few hours between 11am-2:40pm at the Nisqually
NWR in northern Thurston Co.,despite the near constant rain showers at
times,as we walked the McAllister Creek trail west of the main parking lot
and along the immediate McAllister Creek trail north to the mouth of the
creek. Our main purpose was to locate any migrating shorebirds as in our
last visits and we were able to loacte a fairly good list of shorebird
species including our two main highlights that included a single juvenile
SOLITARY SANDPIPER along the east-west McAllister Creek trail"pond",which is
presumably the same individual bird located on the 28th of July indicated in
refuge records. The bird was seen foraging alone along the vegetated edges
of the quickly drying "pond",but flew off several times to an undetermined
location while calling,but was observed again and photographed after we
returned to the location,after waiting a heavy rain shower out in our
vehicle. Our other main shorebird highlight was a juvenile RED-NECKED
PHALAROPE along the exposed mudflats and shoreline of McAllister Creek north
of the west photo blind,which was a Thurston Co. record for us and a good
species for the location,but to be expected in migration. In addition to the
previously listed species we observed a total of 10 species of shorebirds
during our entire visit,with increased numbers of Lesser Yellowlegs noted
with a total of 6 birds along McAllister Creek amongst a small flock of
Greater Yellowlegs and Long-billed Dowitchers,which made good comparisions
with both species. A list of our highlights at the Nisqually NWR follows
below:

3 Am.Bitterns
1 "Cackling"Canada Goose
4 Wood Ducks
1 Cinnamon Teal
11 Hooded Mergansers
1 female Common Merganser
1 Northern Harrier
17 Greater Yellowlegs
6 Lesser Yellowlegs
1 SOLITARY SANDPIPER
8 Spotted Sandpipers
6 Western Sandpipers
52 Least Sandpipers
8 Long-billed Dowitchers
1 Common Snipe
1 RED-NECKED PHALAROPE
8 Caspian Terns
3 Band-tailed Pigeons
1 Mourning Dove
15 Purple Martins
6 Northern Rough-winged Swallows
12+ Willow Flycatchers


Good birding,

Ruth and Patrick Sullivan
GODWIT at worldnet.att.net