On Thursday, 29 December Fred Boesche, Ryan Merrill and I birded from Ocean
Shores to North Cove. Our first stop was Damon Point, where we had 3 Snowy
Owls. The recent storms made venturing much past the pond treacherous (waves
were surging over the beach side and spilling over to the other side of the
point). On the way over to the jetty, we had an imm Glaucous Gull fly by
near the game range on Marine View Drive.

The jetty was fairly productive. We scanned from the bluff just north of the
entrance road to get a bit of elevation on the high seas. In additions to
many Red Phalaropes, I spotted one Fork-tailed Storm-Petrel well offshore.
We also saw several shearwater-ish shapes on the horizon, but none of the
observations were long enough to identify them. We wasted a bit too much
time walking the beach and looking for dead birds. Our totals in about 3/4
of a mile were 8 Western Grebes, 6 Red Phalaropes, 4 Northern Fulmars, 1
Marbled Murrelet, 1 Cassin's Auklet, 1 Double-crested Cormorant, 1
White-winged Scoter, and a few unknowables. As we walked back to the car, we
noticed a very pale gull sitting near the parking lot. Studying it closely,
it was an apparent adult Glaucous x Glaucous-winged Gull hybrid.

We drove down to Midway Beach and North Cove after that, but we had pretty
much run out of light. Both spots produced more Red Phalaropes. During the
day we counted about 90, some in such odd habitats as a forested swamp, and
a fast-moving stream.

See below for a report from Jeff Antonelis-Lapp with some of the same birds
plus more.

Cheers
Charlie Wright
Bonney Lake, Washington

>From Wednesday thru Friday, I birded various Grays Harbor locations with my
wife Valerie, son Dimitri and nephew Casey Ryan and his girlfriend Margaret
from Indiana. As others have reported, we found many red phalaropes- 18,
plus one road kill and 2 raptor kills. We found 1 snowy owl at Damon Point,
and 1 rock sandpiper at Westport. Along the beach north of the jetty at
Ocean Shores, washed ashore, we found 6 western grebes, 1 marbled murrelet,
and 1 northern fulmar.

Jeff Antonelis-Lapp
Enumclaw, WA
jal_1 at hotmail.com