Hello, tweeters.

Netta Smith and I spent parts of Saturday and Sunday at the outer coast.
Just about all of our shorebirding was on Saturday, 8 May, and it was
generally disappointing, with small numbers of all species but Sanderlings,
of which there were probably 1000 along the beach at Ocean Shores. With them
we saw about 40 Semipalmated Plovers, 2 Western Sandpipers, and 2 Dunlins.
There were a lot of gulls, most interesting of which was a second-winter
GLAUCOUS GULL. Very white with scattered buffy flecks, yellow eye, and
classic two-toned bill. There were also many white first-year
Glaucous-winged Gulls; this is the time of year to see them! We watched a
Parasitic Jaeger harass a kittiwake off the beach.

We drove along several parts of the beach - that's how we saw the
Sanderlings. We drove to the south from Taurus as far as you can drive (big
signs stop you), and right there was a carcass of a Minke Whale, the first
I've ever seen on the beach. It was about 25' long, somewhat tattered, with
a lot of chunks taken out (some seemed too large to be from birds - sharks?)
but showed all characteristics, including the baleen on one side. A pair of
ravens were feeding there, as well as a few immature gulls. If you get down
there fast, it's worth seeing.

At the Ocean Shores jetty and mouth of Grays Harbor there were 2 Black
Oystercatchers, ca 2000 Sooty Shearwaters, ca 300 Common Terns, ca 50
Black-legged Kittiwakes, and a miscellany of other species in small numbers.
A few loons were heading north offshore, both Pacific and Red-throated (and
one Common), many too far away to identify. There were also at least 3 Gray
Whales there, probably feeding and surfacing just south of the end of the
jetty.

At Bottle Beach we saw nothing, even though the tide was in a good position.
The most interesting critter there was a Nutria in the big pond to the east
of the road that goes off opposite Bottle Beach, the first I've seen in
Grays Harbor County.

At Tokeland there were about 50 Whimbrels and 40 dowitchers (distant,
probably Short-billed) out on the beach, nothing at the marina, even though
high tide approached. Other than a few scattered Killdeers, 4 Greater
Yellowlegs at Julia Butler Hansen NWR, and 20 Dunlins heading south
licketysplit at Long Beach (all on Sunday), that was it for shorebirds. We
didn't make a thorough check of all localities, but that was it for the ones
we did check.

At the North Jetty of the Columbia on both days there were dozens, perhaps
hundreds, of Common Murres flying past, most heading north; but very little
other sign of migration. One flock of 4 White-winged Scoters and one of 10
Surf Scoters (Sat) and another of 20 Greater Scaups (Sun) flew north past
that jetty.

If you haven't gone down and checked out the cormorants at Admiralty Head at
Fort Canby State Park, you should do that. You can stand at the interpretive
center and look down at a mixed colony of Brandt's and Pelagic, and with a
scope, you can see wonderful behavior, including the courtship displays of
Brandt's. They were all gathering nesting material today, and it was
fascinating to watch them dive underwater and come up from below to grab
plant material floating on the surface. They would get a beakful, take off
into the wind, and spiral up to their nesting ledge. One bird that had
picked up too much couldn't get more than a foot off the water and finally
landed far along its takeoff path.

Also visible from there is the South Jetty in Oregon, where there were about
a dozen Brown Pelicans on Saturday (didn't see any in Washington). There is
a huge haul-out of sealions at the tip, at least 200 Steller's (blonds) and
perhaps a dozen California (brunettes). One of the dark individuals really
looked like a No. Fur Seal in silhouette, but I guess that's very unlikely.
The Steller's are concentrated in the somewhat isolated stretch at the tip,
but a few were present long along the sides well to the east, then there was
a gap, then the Californias right on the top. One Steller's was rather near
the Californias, but otherwise the species were quite separated. I wonder if
biologists in Oregon are keeping track of these animals, which you may not
be able to see well from the Oregon side.

We stopped at Chinook, on the Columbia River, to look out at the huge
Caspian Tern colony on East Sand Island. Quite an impressive sight.