Subject: Warm Beach, Port Susan - Red Knots
Date: Sep 2 06:16:38 2002
From: Marcus.D.Roening at gsk.com - Marcus.D.Roening at gsk.com


Hi Tweets,

On Saturday, August 31, Heather and I paddled our Kayaks out of Warm Beach
into the Estuary of Hatt Slough of the Stillaguamish River. It was one of
those glorious 75 degree sunny days, with just a hint of breeze that made
for perfect kayaking and good birding. We headed out from the shore at
Noon, in order to locate resting shorebirds at the 1:30 pm high tide. The
birds did not disappoint us.

A GREATER YELLOWLEGS tooted at us from the shore, carefully checking over
the flotsam of the incoming tide sweeping across the miles of mudflats and
sand. No sign of his cousins the Lesser Yellowlegs that had been so
numerous two weeks before. As we headed out to the first channel among the
bulrushes, the OSPREY parents were calling noisily and the 2 kids responded
in kind from the old pilings. This was about the 8th year of successful
nesting amongst these old railroad pilings.

As we paddled further, the Harbor Seals would keep popping up their heads
to check us out. It is almost impossible to get tired of looking at them,
with their big curious brown eyes following you just at the edge of your
sight. The first shorebird site is a higher strip of sand that stays above
the tide about a half an hour longer than the rest and seems to attract the
larger shorebirds. Today there were:

84 Black-bellied Plovers - about half and half in alternate and basic
plumage
25 Long-billed Dowitchers - keeking and
3 RED KNOTS in juvenile plumage.

This was my first sighting of these shorebirds at Warm Beach. As we
watched a group of 200 Western Sandpipers flew in, containing one seemingly
lost Sanderling. As the tide continued to rise, the shorebirds started
getting restless and then a beautiful adult PEREGRINE FALCON, decided the
question and they flew off to the north. Despite another hour of paddling
in the direction they headed, we never did find that flock again. We did
relocate the flock of Western Sandpipers on another patch of mudflat and
were treated to a dark MERLIN chasing after his meal for the day.

Other Sightings for the day:
2 Common Loons - yodeling!
4 DC Cormorant
6 Great Blue Heron
200 Mallard
30 American Wigeon - first for the summer
2 Northern Pintail - first for the summer
1 Common Merganser
8 Red-breasted Merganser - family group
4 Osprey
1 Bald Eagle
1 Peregrine Falcon
1 Merlin
600 Ring-billed Gulls
60 Glaucous-winged Gulls
20 Caspian Terns
21 COMMON TERNS - flew right over our boats calling
35 Band-tailed Pigeons
2 Belted Kingfisher

Good Birding,




Marcus Roening
Tacoma, WA
marcus.d.roening at gsk.com