Hi Tweeters-
I spent today making a few stops along the coast. Only occasional
sputters of rain interrupted an otherwise very pleasant day with
little wind.
Some of the notables -
Westport jetty [Westport, Grays Harbor Co] 8:00-~10:30
Black Turnstone 10-15
Rock Sandpiper 1
Surfbird 7
Killdeer - 5 near the parking lot
Bonaparte's Gull 1
Pacific Loon 2
Common Loon 1


Midway Beach [Midway, Pacific Co] 11:00 to ~2:30
1 Peregrine Falcon [south of the road]
0 Gyrfalcon
~50 Snowy Plover! [see below]
1 Semipalmated Plover!
1000? Dunlin
200? Sanderlings
10-20 Western Sandpipers
~5 Least Sandpipers
1 Wilson's Snipe [south of the road, in the marshy area]
4 American Pipits
5 Western Meadowlarks

Most all of shorebirds were north from where the road comes in to
the water [nb: You can get around the 'lake' at the end of the road
and out to the beach by going north a ways along the edge of the
water - south doesn't work as well...]. I spent a long time just
enjoying the Sanderlings & Dunlin as well as the constant present of
Snowy Plovers -- my only other luck with them here has been in little
trickles, never even approaching 10. Today, they were all over the
place. The stayed mostly off the water a bit, but roughly parallel
with the huge Dunlin flock -- not all the way back in the live grass,
but rather wandering the beach and sitting amongst some of the
'drift-grass.' As an added bonus, 2 of them were leg-banded, so now I
need to figure out who to report those bands to. Now that I look at
my books, I guess I shouldn't be too surprised by the Semipalm
Plover, but I was caught a little off-guard by its appearance amongst
the others.

Tokeland Marina [Tokeland, Pacific Co] 2:45 - 3:30
Marbled Godwit [1 flock, no good estimate today]
Willet [~15]
LB Dowitcher [~20]
1 Black-bellied Plover [at Graveyard Spit, 7th St]

Scattered other birds here and there as well, making for a very good
day out and about.

Matt Bartels
Seattle, WA






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