Subject: Ridgefield and Luhr Beach
Date: Aug 30 21:17:40 2004
From: David Hayden - dtvhm at nwrain.com


On Sunday, Sherry Thiel and I drove the auto loop at Ridgefield. We
could only locate one of the Snowy Egrets at Rest Lake. It was sitting
the grass near a Great Blue Heron and away from the main Great Egret
flock. Also we had 1 Black Swift, a few Vaux's Swifts, a Great Horned
Owl, and 2 White Breasted Nuthatchs. Shorebird numbers have dwindled,
only seeing a few Greater Yellowlegs, Long Billed Dowitchers, and a
handful of Least and Western Sandpipers.

On Monday after work I headed down to Luhr Beach, arriving at 5:30pm on
a high tide. I scanned the calm water for nearly an hour before locating
the probable Long Billed Murrelet north from the parking lot area. It
was continuely diving and a bit hard to find at times since it never
stayed surfaced for any real length of time until later. It was a
little ways out just past the pilings to the left and worked its way
further out into deeper water. The light was not the best, but good
enough that when it turned in the light you could see the white throat
and constrasting dark cap and dark complete nape, and dark body. At one
point the Murrelet just sat for about minute with its head pointed
slightly upward showing off the bill which seemed longer than most
Marbled Murrelets. As Jason pointed out, this is not the best field
mark, but striking none the less. I could not pick out any white eye
crescents no did I see the underwings, mainly due to lighting and
distance. Hope this bird sticks around for others to see and to hear
their oppinions on this bird.

Dave Hayden
Lakewood, WA
dtvhm at nwrain com