Hello Tweets,

Today my mother and I ventured back over to Port Hadlock in search of the Blue Jay,specifically for decent photographs of the bird since the bird has remained quite elusive at times. We arrived at the previous location in Port Hadlock at the intersection of 3rd Street and Maple Street at 9:20am,where we immediately heard the Blue Jay calling with a very brief observation of the bird at a residence just west of Maple Street. The bird was then observed atop a tall conifer tree along Maple Street,where it sat and preened for several minutes before flying off to the northwest. Upon driving we relocated the bird at yet another residence along Cedar Ave. and the intersection of Hayden Rd.,where it was observed at a series of feeders visible from the road. It is at this location we obtained our best photos yet of the bird,which was an uplift for us and the bird was quite cooperative at this location,as well as observed foraging along on the ground across the road. It is believed the bird may visit many other feeders in the nearby area,as we personally know of 5 residents that the bird has made visits to and so far we have only seen one bird. We have placed 3 photographs of the Blue Jay taken today at Port Hadlock can be viewed on our website at the following link: http://www.pbase.com/godwit/little

Since we met our primary goal for the day we decided to travel over to nearby Port Townsend for some additional birding,as we checked a few locations including the general Port Townsend Shipyard area,Fort Worden State Park and a short visit made to the Kah-Tai wetland lagoon. Our main highlights began with a visit to the Port Townsend Shipyard that produced two separate roosting shorebird flocks at two separate dock structures that were both visible from a trail bordering the open salt water. One flock contained a group of 500+ Dunlin,54 Black-bellied Plovers and 25 Sanderlings followed by the second group roosting closer to the protected jetty area that hosted our best highlights. This flock contained 255 Black Turnstones with a single Ruddy Turnstone,up to 4 Rock Sandpipers,and 5 Surfbirds mixed in with good scoping views of the entire flock. It was great surprise to see this many "rockbirds" at this location,but it appears they and other shorebirds use this as a regular roosting location,especially at high tide and thanks to Marcus Roening for posting this location in his posting on the 8th of November.

Next, our visit to Fort Worden S.P. was fairly slow,but good,thorough scoping from several locations produced up to 95+ Ancient Murrelets,mainly in groups of 5-15 birds flying west to east along Admiralty Inlet. Overall good numbers of waterbirds were noted with fairly good numbers of Common Murres,Pigeon Guillemots,Marbled Murrelets,and Long-tailed Ducks being the most significant species noted and having prime lighting conditions added to our best views. 2 Black-legged Kittiwakes were briefly observed in a fairly large gull flock as we looked north into Admiralty Inlet from a viewing area west of the lighthouse. Our mammal highlight of the day was a group of 3 River Otters entertained themselves on a wooden dock,as well as in the water at the Port Townsend Marine Science Center.

Our final stop of the day was made at the Kah-Tai lagoon,where highlights consisted of the following species:

1 male Eurasian/Wigeon intergade
10 Lesser Scaup
3 Ruddy Ducks
1 Cooper's Hawk
2 Greater Yellowlegs
1 Red-breasted Sapsucker
1 Yellow-rumped Warbler
1 Lincoln's Sparrow

Our final species of the day was a single adult Northern Shrike noted along Chimacum Center Rd. immediately south of the town of Chimacum. We began our day with a pair of Trumpeter Swans along Beaver Valley Rd. near Beaver Valley at a traditional location we have encountered this species in past years.


Good birding,

Ruth and Patrick Sullivan
Fircrest,WA
godwit at worldnet.att.net