Saturday, a group of 17 birders went on an East Lake WA Audubon field trip to the Grays Harbor area. We started birding at the Raymond Waterfront Park where we had four warbler species - YELLOW, BLACK-THROATED GRAY, WILSON'S and COMMON YELLOWTHROAT. On the way to Tokeland we saw a GREAT EGRET in a stream on the south side of Hwy 104 a little west of the airport turn off. At the Tokeland marina, there were 400+ MARBLED GODWITS packed together on the closest dock to the street. A number of us scoped the flock but could not find a Bar-tailed Godwit. There also were a few WILLET and CASPIAN TERNS. some GREATER AND LESSER YELLOWLEGS and many HEERMANN'S GULLS. We stopped at North Cove to look at the large flock of gulls for the BLACK-TAILED GULL. Fortunately, Ruth and Patrick Sullivan were there and pointed out the bird. It was still difficult to keep track of among the hundreds of California and Heermann's Gulls. Eventually, everyone got a look at it thru a scope. At Westport !
we saw a number of BROWN PELICANS, a couple of SURF SCOTERS and PIGEON GUILLEMOTS and three species of Cormorants - PELAGIC, BRANDT'S and DOUBLE-CRESTED. We got to Bottle Beach a couple of hours after high tide. We walked out on the mud flats to get a closer look at the hundreds of birds. They were mostly BLACK-BELLIED PLOVERS and WESTERN SANDPIPERS with a few SEMIPALMATED PLOVERS, LEAST SANDPIPERS, BLACK TURNSTONES, SHORT and LONG-BILLED DOWITCHERS. The flocks scattered one time and a PEREGRINE FALCON flew by quite a few seconds later. Our last stop was the John's River access where we walked the paved trail out to the blind. We saw a number yellowlegs, KILLDEER, BELTED KINGFISHER, GREAT BLUE HERONS and RED-TAILED HAWKS. At the ponds seen from the blind there were a number of duck species plus one RED-NECKED PHALAROPE to finish out a good day in very pleasant weather. For the day we had a total of 3 OSPREY before getting to the Grays Harbor area, 2 BALD EAGLE, 6 RED-TAIL!
ED HAWKS and possibly another Pergrine Falcon.

Hugh Jennings
Bellevue, WA
hughbirder at earthlink.net