Subject: Pacific County Field Trip Report.
Date: Apr 14 08:53:42 2003
From: Lynn Schulz - linusq at worldnet.att.net


Hi Birders:
Pacific County was great. We watched Grey Whales in Willapa Bay from Bruceport County Park, between South Bend and Bay Center. There is an overlook there, and great woods w/ small birds and nice picnic area. South of there is another overlook of the water and mud at Bruceport Heritage Marker, where you can see shorebirds and waterfowl.
Our group stayed at Ft. Canby St Park at the far SW corner of WA. We woke up to a singing Orange-crowned Warbler in camp. It was the first of many in the park, singing and flitting about, mostly concealed, but visible at times. Ft Canby is apparently where many birds "fall out" after they cross the Columbia. We had some warblers in the bushes by the lighthouse at North Head, and you could hear them singing all over the park. We also had many Wt-crowned Sparrows. Coming back from the North Jetty, we stopped at Waikiki Beach to view the cliffs and the old lighthouse at Cape Disappointment. Wow. Beautiful scenery, many Cormorants of all 3 kinds in breeding plumage. They were on the cliffs in groups, flying and perched in the water. We also watched a raptor show above the cliffs. Very, very inspiring.
At Ft Canby, Rolan Nelson had paid for some yurts in which we stayed. They are new and could sleep up to 5 people on comfortable beds (bring your own sleeping bag), although we only had 2 or 3 people in each one. There is a HEATER, light, and electrical outlet. They are warm almost immediately after turning on the heat. The state park restroom was quite close. We were allowed to stay in the yurt until 1pm the next day, so we went out to breakfast in Ilwaco, and birded before coming back to camp and loading up the cars. The yurts cost $35. per night plus tax. Pretty neat. The park has lots of trees and is huge, so you feel like you are really camping. There is lots of varied habitat as you drive around. Very nice park, especially during migration.
Rolan had based a lot of this 2-day tour on the info in the book, A BIRDER'S GUIDE TO COASTAL WASHINGTON, by Bob Morse. I thank Rolan for his research and scouting. We had an excellent trip.
Yours, Carol Schulz
DesMoines, WA
linusq at att.net
----- Original Message -----
From: Rolan Nelson
To: tweeters at u.washington.edu
Sent: Sunday, April 13, 2003 9:27 PM
Subject: Pacific County Field Trip Report.


Greetings,

There are 11 weary but sated birders from Tahoma Audubon back home tonight after a marathon circumnavagation of the SW quarter of our State. We left early Saturday morning, drove west to Montesano, then down to Raymond, on to Long beach, up to Leadbetter Point, then back down to Ft. Canby for the night. This morning it was a quick tour of the state park, then to Ilwaco and on up the Columbia to Longview and back up I-5. Weather and time kept us from checking out Julia Butler NWR, but it will be there next time.
We had 90 species for the trip including a LIFE BIRD for several in the group as we nailed the RUFF on Foster Road/Brady Loop. A big thanks to Dennis Duffy for picking it out of the field of approx. 100 GREATER YELLOWLEGS.
Other highlights included a close up look (less than 30 feet) of a huge flock or resting DUNLIN near the public pier in South Bend. There were hundreds of them in literally every phase of transition for winter to summer markings. It was an excellent chance to study the phases at very close range.
The group also OOHed and AAHed over the breeding plumage BRANDT'S CORMORANTS on the cliffs at Ft. Canby. The blue on the throats was stunning! We found several species in breeding plumage including HORNED GREBE and COMMON LOON. Other highlights include two seperate PEREGRINES and lots of TURKEY VULTURES. We began seeing the TVs singly and in groups of up to 4 birds at the south end of Willapa Bay and eastward up the Columbia River as far as the Hansen NWR. SWALLOWS continue to increase in numbers, and there were MARSH WRENS everywhere!

Fun weekend!
-Rolan


Rolan Nelson
Burley, WA
rnbuffle at yahoo.com




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