Hi all,
A few of us headed out to the peninsula this weekend via Aberdeen Fri. night and home via the Bainbridge ferry Sunday evening. On Saturday we had to temporarily give up birdwatching because of the sweltering heat out there. Anyone who isn?t taking global warming seriously must now struggle with the image of some over-50?s birders nearly stripped down and body-surfing on Third Beach at the end of September. Sorry for that. The birding highlight was a Great Egret on the Waatch River near Neah Bay, WA on Sunday, and the mammal highlight was a mature Gray Whale at Cape Flattery plus a probable Harbor Porpoise (as opposed to Dall) at Third Beach.
The birds in order seen were:

1 European Starling
2 Crow
3 Brown Pelican
4 Surf Scoter
5 Western Grebe
6 Song Sparrow
7 Stellar?s Jay
8 Pacific Loon
9 Golden Crowned Kinglet
10 Winter Wren
11Red Crossbill (The Sitka Spruce were going for broke, just covered in cones, no doubt trying to overwhelm the Red Crossbills, which were abundant everywhere we went).
12 Chestnust backed Chickadee
13 Glaucous winged Gull
14 Pelagic Cormorant
15 Double crested Cormorant
16 Black Oystercatcher (Third Beach)
17 Savannah Sparrow (these were all over all the beaches and seemed to us to be bigger and more svelte and longer bodied than the ones that live inland here)
18 Northern Raven
19 White Winged Scoter
20 Black Scoter
21 Peregrine Falcon
22 Dipper (Ho River, singing exuberantly)
23 Flicker
24 Red Necked Grebe
25 Belted Kingfisher
26 Am. Robin
27 Red tailed Hawk
28 Red Bellied Sapsucker
29 Band tailed Pigeon (2 only, over Forks)
30 Heerman?s Gull
31 California Gull
32 Western Gull
33 Fox Sparrow (Kalaloch)
34 Great Blue Heron
35 Harlequin Duck (Stait, many)
36 Brandt?s Cormorant
37 Black Turnstone (Stait, no Surfbirds)
38 Pigeon Guillemot
39 Common Loon
40 Osprey (Neah Bay)
41 Common Merganser (Waatch River)
42 Great Egret (in the Waatch River in the estuary between Neah Bay and the coast)
43 Wigeon
44 Canada Geese
45 Hermit Thrush (Flattery)
46 Yellow Rumped Warbler (Flattery)(missed an OC warbler I think, and a R C Kinglet)
47 Common Murre (Flattery)
48 Long billed Dowitcher (4 on the Waatch River estuary)
49 Red Winged Blackbird
50 Green winged Teal
51 Mallard
52 Black Bellied Plover (one only)
53 Sanderling (one only)
54 Dunlin (one only, with other two the only pipers we ever saw on the ocean beaches)
55 Pintail
56 Rock Pigeon

As usual we saw no Nighthawks. Haven?t seen many trip-lists on tweeters from the eastside of the state this year that included Nighthawks, it seems to me. Are they going down there too?

It?s really nice the way the Makahs have formalized the process for visiting their reservation and we were glad to buy the recreation pass in Neah Bay for only $7(/year)?it helps to make you feel you?re supposed to be there and the trail wood-work at Flattery is the most artistic I?ve seen anywhere.


Ed Newbold newboldwildlife at netscape.net Beacon Hill Seattle, where Golden Crowned Sparrows have just arrived









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