Subject: Grays Harbor CBC
Date: Dec 15 14:37:49 2002
From: Ruth Sullivan - GODWIT at worldnet.att.net


Hello Tweets,

Yesterday my mother and I participated on the Grays Harbor CBC,despite the very severe weather at times throughout the day consisting of heavy southerly winds and heavy,steady rain throughout the day at times,of which the wind and rain led during mid afternoon,but strongest during the early morning. Our route consisted of the Bowerman Basin area,of which was mostly done on foot,as we were very prepared for the weather and plenty of walking. Throughout the day at Bowermand Basin we ran into up to 80 birders that were in search of the Bean Goose,but unfortunately the Bean Goose was NOT relocated at any of the recent locations again after my mother and I briefly observed the bird at 8:10am at the extreme west end of the Bowerman Basin. We arrived at the Bowerman Basin Airport at 7:45am and drove past the yellow gate beyond the Cafe that was open,where we parked at waited to the lighting conditions improved to our ability while watching very large flocks of Dunlins roosting on the entire water-soaked Bowerman Airport runway. Upon arriving throughout the day the Dunlin flocks covered nearly the entire runway,presumably the greatest count for the area and it is apparent the very large numbers of Dunlin were our personal largest counts for a single location probably due to the very stormy conditions and high tide condtions.We parked our vehicle at the last airplane hanger then proceeded along the Sandpiper Trail,but did not locate any geese flocks until we had the BEAN GOOSE and 3 Canada Geese flying in over the trail and landed with 10 "Dusky"Canada Geese at the end of the runway in very heavy winds and rain,BUT the bird remained only briefly until all 14 geese lifted and flew to the east and were never found again during the day and during our visit this morning between 8am-9:45am. A bird thought to be the Bean Goose was advertised on hand-held radios that several birders had in the field yesterday afternoon in which birders went running with their scopes and became extremely excited over,but the call turned out to be a false alarm. We tried several times during the day to help birders relocate the Bean Goose as we conducted our counting of the area for the CBC,but we could not locate it,but the 3 Snow Geese remained throughout the day,which several birders were able to observe. Today the weather and overall visibility was much improved compared to yesterday during our visit,but geese and Dunlin flocks were even fewer and it is possible the Bean Goose could be still around or perhaps it truly drifted inland by the heavy winds to another undisclosed location. Nevertheless we were happy to get the bird on the Grays Harbor CBC,being the first record for North America on a CBC.

We encountered a total of 72 species(of the 125 species on the entire count as of yesterday)for the Bowerman Basin area among several additional highlights,including a subadult POMARINE JAEGER observed by Michael Donahue and Alan Knue early yesterday morning in Grays Harbor,but the bird was not relocated upon extensive searching of Grays Harbor from several vantage points. Due to the stormy conditions we did manage to locate a few relatively pelagic species including a dark-morph NORTHERN FULMAR in Grays Harbor and a single RED PHALAROPE at the Hoquiam STP. A few other highlights of the day in our area consisted of the following:

1 Red-throated Loon
13 Western Grebes
1 Eurasian Wigeon
2 Canvasback
1 Ruddy Duck
2 Bald Eagles
3 Peregrine Falcons
3 Virginia Rails(heard only)
253 Black-bellied Plovers
250 Western Sandpipers
12 Least Sandpipers
4 Thayer's Gulls
1 Short-eared Owl
1 Orange-crowned Warbler
1 SWAMP SPARROW(briefly heard and seen well at the west end of the Sandpiper Trail with 4 Lincoln's Sparrows and sveral nearby Song Sparrows)

As mentioned earlier we visited the Bowerman Airport again this morning along with several other birders,but were unable to relocate the Bean Goose or the 3 Snow Geese,but my mother and I did observe a LESSER YELLOWLEGS flying over the airport at visible range,which could not be relocated. On our way home we checked along Brady Loop Rd.,where birding was quite slow,but we managed to loacte a few highlight for our trip including:

2 Peregrine Falcons
1 Western Scrub Jay
50+ Am.Pipits

The female REDHEAD and the single Western Grebe were again present at the east end of Vance Creek Co.Park near Elma.


Good birding,

Ruth and Patrick Sullivan
godwit at worldnet.att.net