Hey Tweeters,
I birded with Fred Boesche today in southern Gray's Harbor and
northern Pacific Counties. The major highlight was an alternate male
Hudsonian Godwit at Bottle Beach at roughly 2:45pm. The bird perched briefly
near a Long-billed Curlew (which almost dwarfed the godwit), but was mainly
seen in flight as it called with a relatively high-pitched two noted call,
accentuated and higher pitched on the second syllable. The bird was very
distinctive with a deep chestnut breast and upper belly, a conspicuous white
rump and black tail, and a most striking black and white wing pattern. A
beautiful bird and strong flier.

We started the day just before 7:00AM in Tacoma at the Tyee Marina,
checking for the booby as I did yesterday afternoon. No luck on that of
course. We then drove straight to Tokeland, where we had quite a few
shorebirds of various species, including:
15 Western Sandpipers
20 Dunlin
60 Red Knots (a single pure flock!)
10 Short-billed Dowitchers
60 Marbled Godwits
1 LONG-BILLED CURLEW
40 Whimbrel
1 Ruddy Turnstone
4 Mew Gulls

Next we stopped at nearby Graveyard Spit:
60 Caspian Terns
30 Black-legged Kittiwake
25 Red Knots
10 Whimbrel
2 Olive-sided Flycatchers

At the Westport Jetty we noted:
5 Sooty Shearwaters
4 Brown Pelicans
10 Pigeon Guillemots
600+ Rhinoceros Auklets (most moving past in a very steady stream,
southbound)
15 Surf Scoters
200 Bonaparte's Gulls (all immature)
60 Black-legged Kittiwakes (also imm.)
2000+ Common Terns
1+ ARCTIC TERN
2 Parasitic Jaegers
1 Wandering Tattler

Our final stop for shorebirds was at Bottle Beach just after a very
low tide. As expected, you could hardly see the water, but a LONG-BILLED
CURLEW and the aforementioned HUDSONIAN GODWIT were the only two birds
present.

Hoquiam Sewage Treatment Plant was full of ducks, mainly scaup and
Gadwall, seems odd for mid/late May:
8 Blue-winged Teal
2 Cinnamon Teal
4 Green-winged Teal
many Greater Scaup (didn't notice any Lesser, but they could have been
present)
2 REDHEAD
2 "Cackling" Canada Geese
1 BLACK SWIFT

Stops at both Brady Loop Road and the Shouweiler Wetland on the way
back yielded nothing out of the ordinary. Good birding!

Charlie Wright
Birdking88 at aol.com
Sumner, WA