Hi Tweeters,

I have finally waded through the email well enough to get around to post this.

I was on vacation last week and started out the week with a field trip for the SAS Shorebird class on Sunday. ?Brett posted about the field trip on Saturday. ?Sunday was a soaker but got to see a lot of great birds including several Long Billed Curlews feeding in the mud near the Hoquiam sewage ponds. ?I hung in there for round two at Bottle beach after the tide started to go out. ?Everyone else had bailed out except Jim Flynn, the class instructor, and I. ?It was worth the wait and it actually stopped raining! ?At least it wasn't freezing cold on top of the rain. ?Got to see a very active and noisy Pectoral Sandpiper and a Red Knot trying to blend into the Black Bellied Plovers. ?And the list goes on, Short Billed Dowitchers, Semipalmated Plovers, ?Western and Least Sandpipers, Sanderling and Kildeer. ?All in one place! ?Also while we looked for birds on Ocosta Third waiting for the tide to go out a couple of flocks of Whimbrel flew over and one of them seemed to be spelling SO, then they went over the trees. ?We wondered if it could have been the begininning of a distress signal, SOS, PEREGRINE!!

After drying out a bit went to Portland with my Mom to see the Vaux's Swifts on Monday. Jim had asked me to let him know if it was worth it and yes it was. ?(So I hope you read this posting, Jim, because the email address I used for you bounced.) ?The gathering together of the swifts and the swirling was beautiful to watch. ?The weather was perfect, near 90! ? ?A few went into the smokestack individually, but mostly it was just one big decision to go in and WOW! ?I did not time it but I guess it took about 10 minutes approximately for them to all go in there. ?My Mom described it as looking like reverse smoke. ?There were at least 2 predatory birds taking advantage of the mass of birds. ?I am not sure they had any luck but they caused 2 masses of swifts to go so high they just looked like large smudges against the darkening sky.

We went to Portland Aud. Soc. store and natural area. ?Unfortunately couldn't really explore because it is on a steep ravine which wasn't accessible for my Mom. ?The store and education center is huge and well worth the side trip. ?Also the neighborhood Chapman Elementary is in, is very nice in a modest way, with a strip of funky shops and restaurants on 23rd. ?

The rest of the week I did a lot of exploring the coast and went back to many spots from Sunday. ?One of the highlights was going back to the Tokeland Marina and seeing two Marbled Godwits engage in a very interesting behavior display. ?This was Wed. and the weather was nice that day and they were mostly lounging and preening on the beach. ?A pair of them were vocalizing and I thought that they were fighting because they were beak to beak and then they broke off and went side to side facing opposite directions. ?It was hard to see how much pushing against each other they were doing but when they broke away again they moved about 6 feet apart from each other and bowed, nearly touching their chest to the beach. ?At first I thought it was territorial but after the bowing I thought maybe a pair bonding type display. ?Has anyone else watched this display before? ?Or any insight into the purpose I would appreciate.

Watched gulls (?, some looked a lot like Heermans but some were very dark brown overall) harass fishing Brown Pelicans at the Westport Marina. ?I am pretty sure one pelican was not fazed because after it got the water strained from it's pouch it tilted up it's head and swallowed and then did a nice tail waggle. ?They were very close to the shore for a brief time and it was great to see all of the fishing action up close.

I made three trips back to Bottle Beach and only one was worth it. ?That was Tuesday night. ?Ran into 2 fellow birders I know, they were leaving because the tide was in but I waited it out and got to see a Greater Yellowlegs with 2 Dowitchers while I waited. ?It was nice to have another bird for size comparison for the Yellowlegs and then got to see most of the same birds as I saw on Sunday. ?Lack of a scope is a bit frustrating... ?When I went back Wed eve. 2 obnoxiously friendly dogs showed up and would not leave, no owner in sight. ?Plus the fog rolled in big time. ?The dogs cheerfully accompanied me to my car and really wanted to just be adopted right then and there. ?No dice. ?I tossed a couple slices of bread just so I could get in the car. ?The third time the tide was out a bit far and the fog was so bad all I could see was shadows of birds.

The fog was a problem and Sat didn't stick around, went to Nisqually Wildlife Refuge where it was gorgeous. ?I saw a Snipe that I would have walked right by if it weren't for a batch of singing frogs in the ditch. ?I grabbed two women who were watching Osprey's fish over the bay to show them the Snipe. ?I think they thought I was a little weird but it turned out they had never seen a snipe before. ?They also had never seen a Green Heron before either which was just a little further up the path from the snipe and they really wanted to see that bird. ?I ran into another birder I know on the trail and talked for a bit with one from Tacoma.

All in all it was a nice vacation.

Happy Birding!!

Kathy

Kathy Andrich
Renton, WA
kjandrich at netscape.net

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