Friday, September 20, 2002

Bill Tweit and I left Olympia at 8:00AM to do a little birding on the coast,
with the plan to stay the night in Westport in preparation for the following
day's Westport Seabirds Pelagic Trip. It was an enjoyable day with several
highlights.

After a non-productive stop at the Hoquiam Sewage Treatment Plant, we
arrived at Bottle Beach upon a rising tide. There were many Black-bellied
Plovers almost all in basic plumage, along with a good sized flock of peeps,
majority of which were Westerns, with a scattering of Leasts, a few Dunlin,
and Sanderlings. Dowitchers of both species were heard and also foraging
with the group were several Red Knots. Mixed in with the Black-bellied
Plovers, we pulled out one Pacific Golden-Plover. Short primary projection
and all. After a few minutes of watching the bird, Bill heard the call of
another Golden-Plover. It was flying in with a few more Black-bellied
Plovers, and after it landed in the group, we identified it as an American
Golden-Plover, based on quite long primary projection and overall paler
coloration than the nearby Pacific (both were juvies, of course). After a
while of observing the birds, we decided to make our way to Tokeland, to
arrive on a high tide.

The docks at Tokeland were covered with Marbled Godwits upon arrival. We
searched and searched but could not come up with a Bar-tailed unfortunately.
The other usual suspects were in among the godwit flock.
A bit of passerine searching yielded good results, with an amazing 4 species
of Warblers in one single tree! (note high levels of western Washington
sarcasm). The 4 being Townsend's, Black-throate Gray, Yellow and Audubon's.
Also chipping about noisily was one inquisitive Hutton's Vireo. After
witnessing a few Vaux's Swifts fly over, we decided to head to Westport and
check out the birds around the Marina. We took a gravel road behind the
Coast Guard station, parked by a yellow gate and proceeded to walk to the
waters edge, following the outside perimeter fencing. Bill spent some time
counting the Pelicans, 495 on the pilings, then as we were about to move to
another location, we noticed a large flock of Dowitchers roosting on the
rocks near us, along the waters edge.
Only bringing one scope with us to the spot, I started looking at the birds
through Bill's Swarovski, only to have most of the birds backlit at the
angle we were looking at them from.
I notice one bird in the group that had a shorter droopy bill, but it kept
hiding it, roosting style, behind its feathers. I get Bill's attention
towards it, thinking I may have an early Rock Sandpiper, as that was my
first impression, being on rocks and all, but the cap didn't look right,
matching fairly close to the shade of some of the Short-billed Dowitcher
juvies that surrounded it. So we move up a bit, with a better angle on the
sun, and Bill takes a look. He tells me he's on my bird, telling me that
the head pattern looks dowitcherish, then the bird starts moving around, and
I hear with a questioning sound to his voice, "Sharp-tail?"
Realizing we are looking at birds on rocks, I quickly respond, "your kidding
me", but then realize, oh my, it is a Sharp-tail! So I swipe the scope back
from Bill and confirm it in the better light for myself (not that I ever
doubt Bill ;-) And very enthusiastically, I get extremely happy, this being
only my 2nd Sharp-tailed Sand that I've seen.
A very bright, beautiful juvenile bird. Coverts and Tertials finely edged
with white or orange, bright red cap, with its bold whitish supercillium,
and creamy pumpkin-orange wash to the breast. We watched the bird and the
other surrounding flock for over an hour, getting some good photographs of
all species in the flock, including what should be great photographs of the
Sharp-tailed Sand.
It was a very cooperative, and tame flock allowing great study of both
Dowitchers in an assortment of plumages, and states of molt (which made
dowitcher ID even more confusing) and great looks at some Red Knots, a few
crisp Juvies, and a few adults going into basic, with one bird still showing
quite a lot of red left to its alternate plumage.
We stayed with the birds, until something came through and spooked them, and
they flew out into the bay, towards Ocean Shores.

And to cap off our day, we caught the sunset on the viewing platform in
Westport, and as the sun faded over the horizon, we witnessed the ocean
phenomenon called The Green Flash, a few seconds of pulsating greenish light
over the horizon where the sky meets the water. Very nice end to a
wonderful day of birding.


Bottle Beach Highlights-
Black-bellied Plover 200
PACIFIC GOLDEN-PLOVER 1
AMERICAN GOLDEN-PLOVER 1
Western Sandpiper 150
Least Sandpiper 10
Dunlin 5-6
RED-KNOT 6
"cackling" Canada Goose 20 flying over
Virginia Rail 3
Sooty Fox Sparrow 3
Yellow Warbler 2

Tokeland
Marbled Godwit ~500
Willet - 15
Whimbrel 3
Heermann's Gull 95
Common Murre 1
Townsend's Warbler 2
Black-throated Gray Warbler - 4
Yellow Warbler 4
Yellow-rumped Warbler 4
Hutton's Vireo - 1
Vaux's Swift 3



Westport Marina
Brown Pelican 495
Marbled Godwit - 25
Short-billed Dowitcher 100
Long-billed Dowitcher 50
Red Knot 6
SHARP-TAILED SANDPIPER 1

Pelagic Trip report to follow,
Cheers and Good Birding




----Ryan Shaw
----Lacey, Washington
----rtshaw80 at hotmail.com
----(360) 491-1084
----AIM: RTShaw80



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