Greetings,
My husband and I birded around Bottle Beach, Midway Beach, Tokeland Marina
and John's River today. The weather was great...just short of being too
warm, but a great breeze. Great numbers at the first two!

9am-1pm Bottle Beach (high tide about 1pm) Perfect day to study the birds
and watch their behaviors. Good opportunity to practice counting birds, too.

Of note-

50+ Black Bellied Plovers, various plumages. None of the adult breeding
plumage ones were anything other than Black Bellieds. (I am a migration or
two from being able to identify a "strange" juvenile :)

5 Whimbrel
1 Ruddy Turnstone
1 marbled Godwit (ONLY godwit seen all day)
a couple hundred dowitchers, mostly all short billed
1000+ western sandpipers (the beach was covered with them by noon)
very few least sandpipers seen
100 or so semi-palmated plovers
numerous heron, caspian terns and ring billed gulls. No Heermans Gulls there
at all. At least 10 of the caspian terns were juveniles. They whined a lot
to be fed, would beg wide-mouthed to parents, but at no point did I see a
parent feed one. The young were trying to fend for themselves which was fun
to watch.

Midway Beach 1:30-2:30 (along about1/4 mile of the beach in front of the
main road.)

MANY Sanderlings
over 100 western sandpipers
20+ least sandpipers
30 Ruddy Turnstones in breeding plumage
5 adult and 6 juvenile snowy plovers counted where we were. (Kids and dogs
scattered them several times.)
Heermann's gulls, caspian terns, ring billed gulls. No brown pelicans seen
while we were there.

I would have like to have stayed here a lot longer. There was sure a lot of
activity and movement, both bird and human.

Tokeland Marina 2:45-3pm
Heerman's Gulls and Caspian Terns ruled. Bad time there for shore birds at
the marina itself. Area on the other side of the jetty not checked.

John's River 3:30-5:00pm (area along the river, difficult to see most of the
shore)
1 Greater Yellowlegs
4 Lesser Yellowlegs
40+ short bill dowitchers
20+ least sandpipers
maybe 50 western sandpipers
common yellowthroats, a northern harrier pair, two kingfishers, turkey
vultures, swallows and wrens amused us on the land side. Surprisingly, there
were very few starlings!

This was such a relaxing way to spend such a hot day. The birds are
definitely moving. We are not shorebird experts, though. Finding a juvenile
semipalmated sandpiper in today's group was a real challenge. Just because I
didn't find one, doesn't mean some weren't there. Those with more expertise
could more readily pick up on any rarities.

Jan Watson
Rochester, WA