On Tuesday, July 27 Mike West and I arrived at Bowerman Basin just before
high tide at 9:30 am. The overcast was breaking up, and temperatures ranged
from 68 to 73 degrees. In all we found birding good but not great, lots of
birds were present, but the number of species we saw totalled only 52. We
saw 4 Vaux's Swifts flying low over the lagoon along with swallows. Along
the shoreline were about 2 dozen Least and 2 Spotted Sandpipers, plus Brown
Pelicans, Caspian Terns, and assorted gulls: California, Ring-billed,
American Herring, Western X Glaucous-winged hybrids, and Western. North of
the runway and the boardwalk there were plenty of shorebirds in the Grays
Harbor NWR, perhaps 200 Semipalmated Plovers, plus Least and Western
Sandpipers, Dunlin, and a few Sanderlings. About 2 dozen Canada Geese swam
about in the receding tidewater. All told, perhaps 500 peeps were moving
about, stirred up by a Peregrine Falcon streaking across the mudflats, and
most stayed too far away for identification. A yellowlegs called repeatedly
just out of sight, and left as the Peregrine flew by.



We stopped at the high school in Ocean Shores to check the marsh, but not
much was happening. We saw a downy young Hooded Merganser and an Olive-sided
Flycatcher, and heard a nearby Swainson's Thrush. There were also several of
the usual suspects like crows, House Finches, goldfinches, and robins.



At Bill's Spit the usual access has been sold and now is blocked by new
construction. At the interpretive center we saw a map that shows parking
and beach access a couple of blocks away. At the spit there were 200 Caspian
Terns and a couple of Double-crested Cormorants.



We paid five dollars to park at Damon Point and found only a couple of
Savannah Sparrows in the grass. But Brown Pelicans flew overhead in small
groups to forage south of the point, and Heermann's Gulls awaited them in
the water. At the line of rocks five Common Loons were fishing, Surf and
White-winged Scoters swam offshore, and lots of Caspian Terns, many
accompanied by squawking juveniles, foraged over the water.



We broke off birding just before 3 p.m.with 52 species seen and/or heard:



Common Loon (5 at Damon Point)

Brown Pelican (at least 50 seen)

Double-crested Cormorant

Great Blue Heron

Canada Goose (24 at Gray's Harbor NWR)

Gadwall

Mallard

Northern Shoveler

Greater Scaup

Hooded Merganser (juvenile in swamp of OS High School)

Turkey Vulture

Osprey

Red-tailed Hawk

Peregrine Falcon (1 over mudflats at Gray's Harbor NWR)

Semipalmated Plover (about 100 seen)

Killdeer

Greater Yellowlegs (1 heard at Gray's Harbor NWR)

Spotted Sandpiper

Sanderling

Western Sandpiper

Least Sandpiper (around 50 seen)

Dunlin

Heermann's Gull

Ring-billed Gull

California Gull

Glaucous-winged X Western Gull

Western Gull

American Herring Gull

Caspian Tern (about 300 seen)

Rock Dove

Vaux's Swift (4 low over Bowerman lagoon)

Belted Kingfisher

Olive-sided Flycatcher

Willow Flycatcher

Tree Swallow

Violet-green Swallow

Cliff Swallow

Barn Swallow (c 200 at Bowerman Airport)

Cedar Waxwing

Bewick's Wren

Swainson's Thrush

American Robin

Black-capped Chickadee

American Crow

European Starling

Hutton's Vireo

Common Yellowthroat

Savannah Sparrow

Song Sparrow

Red-winged Blackbird

House Finch

American Goldfinch

House Sparrow



Paul Webster

Seattle

paul.webster at comcast.net