Hello Tweets,

Today my mother and Took advantage of the nice weather and birded a familiar route starting in the Elma area of eastern Grays Harbor Co. and continuing onto the Hoquiam STP,then travelling south and west to the Ocosta-Bottle Beach area,then south to Tokeland in Pacific Co.(with an extensive stop made along Midway Beach Rd.)with a final stop of the day made at the Johns River Wildlife Area. Our day was actually quite slow birding wise,despite the very good birding conditions although we did have a few highlights to be mentioned below. Our main highlight and stop of the day was our first stop between 9am-9:25am(just after getting regular gas for $1.39/gallon in Elma)at the sparrow location previously mentioned by us onto Tweeters along Wakefield Rd.(north of Vance Creek Co.Park and Elma),where we encountered a very good concentration of sparrows foraging in the weedy field and edges within the first 10 minutes of our visit,which was our largest numbers that we have encoutered at this location after initially looking for the unidentified Spizella sparrow on the 10th of March. After parking our vehicle along Wakefield Rd. we walked out into the field and immediately noted good numbers of sparrows consisting mainly of Golden-crowned and Song Sparrows,as we continued further out into the feed bordering bramble edges and a slough to the south. After the first 10 minutes of our visit the sparrow numbers thinned out and seemed to disperse to another area and we were unable to locate the Spizella sparrow,but we managed to get a very good list of other sparrows for the location including the following among a few other species:

1 Osprey
1 female Rufous Hummingbird
1 "Sooty"Fox Sparrow
15+ Lincoln's Sparrows
4 Swamp Sparrows
1 adult tan-striped White-throated Sparrow

Continuing west we made a fairly brief stop along Foster Rd. and the remainder of the western portion of Brady Loop Rd. We checked the Hoquiam STP,although scaup numbers today were quite scattered and and in limited numbers compared to our last visit,possibly due to tide conditions,etc. We continued towards Ocosta and checked along Ocosta Third Street with a quick check amde at Bottle Beach,which produced NO shorebirds and all in all shorebird numbers were very low throughout the day,except at Tokeland with the usual species in occurance. The immature Snow Goose was again present along S.R.105 at Ocosta(east of Ocosta Third Street and Bottle Beach),where it continues to associate with a limited flock of Canada Geese(including 15 "Dusky"Canada Geese).After checking Bottle Beach we continued on to Midway Beach Rd.,where we extensively checked both sides of the beach,being north and south of the end of the road. We were able to locate up to 5 "Streaked"Horned Larks,but it seems numbers have declined possibly due to breeding activity. We also located up to 6 adult Snowy Plovers with minimal effort searching. Very good numbers of Red-throated Loons were noted at this location,including up to 250+ bird noted offshore of both flying and resting birds,which of this species was noted at a few other locations during the day. Further south our main highlight was 28 Long-billed Curlews noted in two seperate flocks on either side of Tokeland among more readily occuring species. Our last main stop of the day was made at the Johns River Wildlife Area(accessed from S.R.105),where our last highlight of the day was an adult Greater White-fronted Goose amongst a flock of Canada Geese. A list of other notable species for the day including a few previously mentioned species include the following:

Red-throated loon
1 at Grays Harbor(south of the Hoquiam STP,Grays Harbor Co.)
4 at Bottle Beach,GH
250+ off Midway Beach Rd.,Pacific Co.(PA)
65+ off S.R.105 at MP 20(south of North Cove,PA)
1 at Tokeland,PA

Red-necked Grebe
8 off S.R.105 at MP 20,PA
14 at Tokeland,PA

"Black"Brant
28 at Bottle Beach,GH
65+ at Tokeland,PA

Eurasian Wigeon
1 female along Brady Loop Rd.,GH

Turkey Vulture
6 along Brady Loop Rd,GH
1 observed from the intersection of S.R.109 and Hwy.101 at Hoquiam,GH
1 at Johns River WA,GH

Osprey
1 along Wakefield Rd.,GH(south of Elma)
1 pair at a nestsite at the Schouweiler Rd. wetland,GH(west of Elma)

Cooper's Hawk
1 along S.R.105,GH(south of Twin Harbors S.P.)

Am.Kestrel
1 male along Brady Loop Rd.,GH

Merlin
1 at Bottle Beach,GH

Peregrine Falcon
1 immature along Foster Rd.,GH(Brady Loop Rd. complex)

Virginia Rail
3 at the Scouweiler Rd. wetland,GH(1 seen,2 heard only)
4 along Wenzel Slough Rd,GH(heard only)

Greater Yellowlegs
2 along Brady Loop Rd,GH
1 along Ocosta Third Street,GH
16 at the Johns River WA,GH

Willet
14 at Tokeland,PA

Whimbrel
3 at Tokeland,PA

Marbled Godwit
350+ at Tokeland,PA

Long-billed Dowitcher
22 at the Johns River WA,GH

Marbled Murrelet
1 off Midway Beach Rd,PA
2 off S.R.105 at MP 20,PA

Western Scrub Jay
1 along Brady Loop Rd.,GH
1 along Wakefield Rd. at Elma,GH

Savannah Sparrow
8+ along Foster and Brady Loop Rds.,GH


Good birding,

Ruth and Patrick Sullivan
godwit at worldnet.att.net




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