Subject: Peregrine Quinault Casino N. of Ocean Shores
Date: Mar 23 12:22:19 2003
From: Ann Spiers - spiers at eskimo.com


On Sunday, March 9, 2003 I accessed the beach north of Ocean Shores from the Quinault Casino, walked north, at 4 pm. Within 15 minutes I saw a peregrine falcon perched on a branch sticking up from beach wood. I angled toward the bird, and it lifted and dropped twenty feet away again on a raised stick.

During February 2002 on Washington's Long Beach Peninsula, I accessed the beach at WAWA35 (so says the sign on the beach), west end of 357th (note the non-epiphytic? licorice fern in the back dune grass). This unsigned access is north of the Oysterville-to-Weather Beach Road. For ten out of the twenty late afternoons I walked there, a peregrine sat on a branch or root sticking up from beach wood. Around one such spot, claw prints and assorted feathers marked its dining spot. However one afternoon, it sat there, raised its claw 'palm' out, and raked its breast feathers so the feathers flew. The dune grass was full of these feathers blown there by the wind. Its flight height when going down beach was usually lower than the dune crest. It usually rode an updraft to lift and go inland over into the dunes.Graceful, effortless, quick up and over.

When you walk the beach, keep your eye toward the dune front, look for a stick sticking up 3-4 feet off the very upper beach, and see if that stick's final extension is a peregrine. The darky color blends in well with the surrounding and the low winter light. Unfortunately, these perches disappear quickly from the beach because the pick-up trucks travel the beach and chainsaw off any wood sticking up either for the pretty drift wood or fire wood. Vehicles are not supposed to curve up the beach so close to the dunes or curve up the dune face? Some stretches are closed? Well, no one has told the fleets of pickups on the beaches of Washington State. If I saw dogs or wood foragers on the beach, I knew the peregrine would not be there, so I walked out to the water to look inland to see the Northern harrier coursing the north-south trench between the fore and back dunes Ledbetter Point reserve south to Oysterville access Beach each night.

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