Hi Tweets,

I was able to swing out to Tokeland today, 7/26, for a scan of the Tokeland
Marina and was rewarded with a large flock of a couple of hundred
long-legged shorebirds just flying in at 5:30pm. High tide was at 8:30 pm
for Westport. Three weeks ago there was not a shorebird to be found near
high tide, so I was quite excited by the prospect of sorting through
Marbled Godwits for one of its lost cousins. The big surprise was that
they were all Whimbrels! This was a good 200 past the largest number I've
ever seen in WA. My final count came up to 240 Whimbrels, with more tucked
among the rocks, I'm sure. To add a little spice to the mix, a flock of 70
Marbled Godwits and 2 dowitcher species did fly in while I was about 3/4 of
the way through counting birds on the marina jetty.

To cap off the evening, I walked the Westport beach behind the Chateau
Westport ( W. Hancock Rd access) south to the cobble sand beach. The flock
mixture has definitely changed since I was here 3 weeks ago.

400 Western Sandpipers - at least 60% were juveniles, of which there were
no juveniles last visit.
30 Least Sandpipers - none last time, 2 juveniles
70 Semipalmated Plovers vs. 13 prior visit

100s of Sooty Shearwaters - I counted at least 200 flying north in a 5
minute period
130 Brown Pelicans flying north in huge V formations of 30 or more, along
with their attendant Heerman's gulls

A nice walk on the beach,

Marcus Roening
Tacoma, WA
marcus.d.roening at gsk.com