Subject: Common Eider and Bar-tailed Godwit seen this afternoon
Date: Aug 8 22:53:48 2004
From: Rob McNair-Huff - rob at whiterabbits.com


Rare birds shouldn't be as easy to view as the COMMON EIDER was this
afternoon in Port Angeles. The bird swam, dove, and climbed up onto a log
to offer an even better view during the hour or so we spent watching it
along the end of the access road opposite of W. 5 Street along the Port
Angeles waterfront. We viewed the eider along with a handful of others,
and we ran into more birders than usual along Ediz Hook and other birding
spots on our way to and from the area on our drive from Tacoma. One of
the biggest benefits of making the drive to see a rare bird like this is
being able to put faces with the familiar names of other Tweeters!

It took some luck and good timing for Natalie and I to see the BAR-TAILED
GODWIT in Dungeness Bay near the Three Crabs Restaurant area this
afternoon. We made it to the area just in time to have a kind birder
point out the bird and compare it to two Marbled Godwits that were a few
yards away down the beach before the movement of a Bald Eagle in the
distance sent the godwits, a Long-billed Curlew, and hundreds of gulls
scattering all across the bay.

All in all we viewed roughly 50 species during our whirlwind look at the
northern Olympic Peninsula today, with stops at the Sinclair Inlet
viewing area along Hwy. 3 near Gorst, Port Angeles harbor and Ediz Hook,
Dungeness Bay and the John Wayne Marina on Sequim Bay. Our birding
started this morning with an immature Bald Eagle soaring in the winds
over our north Tacoma neighborhood, and ended with a Turkey Vulture
soaring over a recovering clearcut along the highway just west of the
Hwy. 20 turnoff to Port Townsend. One interesting highlight was viewing
15 Band-tailed Pigeons in a single tree at the Sinclair Inlet viewing
area in Gorst.

Happy birding!

--
Rob McNair-Huff ---------- Tacoma, WA
Author of Birding Washington (Falcon Publishing, 2004)
and Insider's Guide to the Olympic Peninsula (Globe Pequot, 2001)
White Rabbit Publishing ---- http://www.whiterabbits.com
Mac Net Journal ---------- http://www.macnetjournal.com
The Equinox Project ------ http://www.whiterabbits.com/weblog.html