11:37 start - water level mid with some mudflats visible; outgoing tide
(09:38 high tide - 8.9ft; 17:35 low tide - 1.2ft)
12:08 end

Tweeters,
Mostly sunny, cool south wind with a light chop on the waters of Turning
Basin #3. Normally, when the mudflats at both sides of the mouth of the
storm-drain channel are exposed, gulls usually attend: loafing,
preening, etc. Today, I thought I was going to be skunked on this sort
of sighting until a flock of 11 MEW GULLS landed on the flats on at the
east side of the channel late in my scan. It's the west side mudflats
(the ones associated with the restoration peninsula) that get the gulls
most of the time, but perhaps the Canada geese hanging on the east side
attracted the gulls to settle in nearby. No Glaucous-winged Gulls were
in this neighborhood -- another oddity. Just another observation.

Waiting for the Ospreys to return to Hamm Creek. Shouldn't be too long,
now -- I figure the week of March 28.

Sidenote: Just returned last night from another business sojourn to
Huntington Beach (CA). Didn't have time to bird, but did drive by Bolsa
Chica during the early morning on a couple of occasions. Some diving
ducks, a couple of Common Egrets, godwits, curlews, and small flocks of
peeps. Surprise sighting: a Merlin dining on a Dunlin atop a 3-ft post,
5 feet back from the edge of a very busy PCH (Pacific Coast Highway) at
6:35am. For an alternative to the old saw, the early falcon catches the
shorebird, it seems.

Birds seen during this scan include the following:
Canada Goose (7)
Gadwall (2)
Mallard (6)
Bufflehead (7)
Common Merganser (3)
Double-crested Cormorant (3)
Red-tailed Hawk (2; over Delridge)
Mew Gull (11)
Glaucous-winged Gull (23; mostly circling over Hamm Creek)
Rock Pigeon (6; a low count for these -- I forgot to scan the powerlines
to the south of TB3)
Belted Kingfisher
Bushtit (2)
Bewick's Wren (2)
European Starling (37)
Red-winged Blackbird
House Sparrow (3)

May all your birds be identified,

Denis DeSilvis
Seattle, WA
mailto:denis.j.desilvis at boeing.com