Subject: Yesterday at Ocean Shores
Date: Apr 27 06:40:26 2003
From: georn1 - georn1 at email.msn.com


Greetings,
Yesterday Ken Knittle and I lead the morning Grays Harbor Shorebird Festival field trip to Ocean Shores. It was a good day to be out with decent weather. The only flop was the Jetty, where rain, wind and a complete lack of rock shorebirds dampened our enthusiasm a bit; but only temporarily. Our first stop was the north end of the golf course, which also turned out to be the best stop of the day. At least 500 shorebirds were present here including a stunning male alternate plumage American Golden Plover. Four Red Knots, a few Least and Western Sandpipers and Whimbrel were present among the numerous Marbled Godwits, Dunlin, Short-billed Dowitchers, and Black-bellied Plovers. The Jetty area added Semipalmated Plover and Sanderling, a young Peregrine, a few Black legged Kittiwakes and some of the other usual suspects. After that we spent the rest of our time around the base of Damon Point. There were decent numbers of birds around including plenty of shorebirds. The only new shorebird we picked up was a couple of Greater Yellowlegs at the Pond on Damon Point. Other birds of note included a fine adult Peregrine, a dark Merlin, a drake Black Scoter and a couple of streaked Horned Larks. One Horned Lark was very cooperative. Almost everyone got great scope views, I'd forgotten how bright they can be. This guy was a real crowd pleaser and a great way to end our trip.
On the way home I cruised through the Brady Loop area briefly. There I observed another Golden Plover with about 15 Black bellies. This one was in transitional plumage and I'm not sure which one it was. Some marks suggested Pacific but it was too distant for me to make a call on primary projection. The bird was on the mud and corn stubble at the Foster Road intersection with Brady Loop Road. If anyone finds this guy and feels they can get a clean I.D. on it I'd be curious to know what they think.
Cheers...
Bill Shelmerdine, Olympia.