Hello Jason,

sorry you did not find the Ruff,but there is basically NO access of Monte-Elma Road for looking at the fields where the bird was. We had three parties on Sunday and none had problem finding the spot from the freeway.This is the only way you could see the Ruff ,ask Kristen Stewart about the location,she found the place with no problem. Maybe this bird is still in the area,because on Obol that is in Oregon ,there still have two Ruffs.One disappeared for over a week or more and presumably was eaten by a Cooper's Hawk,but this was not true,the bird appeared again after one week or so.We always stop at this place on the Hwy.12 and found good birds in the flooded fields,no one ever stopped us,also other birders stopped there to.We really searched for a long time between 7:30am to 1pm for this bird on and off.There are many birds been sighted where the birds was seeing only one day for instance the Curlew Sandpiper at Crockett Lake on Whidbey Island,and the one I went after at Oysterville,where i was the only birder there to see this Curlew Sandpiper.What was wrong with the mile post direction? You could also have E-mailed us privately for further information rather than posting your results onto Tweeters,such as questions,concerns,etc. We had a State Patrol car go by us during the morning and did not stop,so maybe it is ok.

Ruth Sullivan


----- Original Message -----
From: "Jason Paulios" <jpaulios at hotmail.com>
To: <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Sent: Monday, November 18, 2002 5:00 PM
Subject: No Ruff 11/18/02


> I made a frantic search for the Ruff this afternoon for about an hour (in
> the rain) with no success. One note of caution for those coming from long
> distances for this bird: the directions from the Sullivan's are a bit vague
> (no disrespect intended). I arrived at milepoint 18.9 on HWY 12 and
> realized that if I stopped here I would be on the side of a very busy
> highway! Is this where the Ruth and Patrick stopped? Is this legal?
> Anyways, I ended up heading for the north edge of these extensive fields
> where I found two viewing areas. One can be reached from Shouweiler
> (spelling?)RD heading north, turning on Monte-Elma road east (also called
> Main St in Elma)to the cemetary. Here there is a vantage point at the back
> of the cemetary.
> The other spot can be reached by driving on Main St./Monte-Elma Rd and
> turning south at the Shell gas station (only problem here is that it looks
> like private property and also is very close to homeowners).
>
> I did run into Michael Dossett on Hwy 12 and pointed him in the direction of
> my prior searches, so maybe he found this bird later after I left. Anyways,
> I just wanted to let others know that there may need to be long searches in
> many large fields to relocate this bird.
>
> Note to Sullivans: Does this sound like the area where you located the
> bird? Can you add any more specifics (realizing that this bird could easily
> move around since Sunday)? Thanks.
>
>
> Jason Paulios
> JPaulios at hotmail.com
> Olympia, WA
>
>
>
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Tired of spam? Get advanced junk mail protection with MSN 8.
> http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail
>
>