Greetings Tweeters,

I spent a delightful day (mid-morning through mid-afternoon) on the beaches at Ocean Shores and Ocean City yesterday. Amazingly, I came home with a sunburned (just slightly - smiles) face, and here I had had doubts about my choice of locations for my day-off birding trip when I got to Olympia earlier in the morning and it was pouring rain!

Among the hundreds of Western Sandpipers on the beaches were Semi-palmated Plovers, Rock Sandpipers, Sanderlings and 4 Black Turnstones. On the beach at Ocean City I sighted a flock of 58 Marbled Godwits (Are they the Tokeland crowd or migrants?) and two Whimbrels.

I also saw the remains of what I think was a Common Murre. The innards had been pretty much cleaned out by, presumably, gulls and crows. I had not carried a field guide with me for the hike along the beach and am now wishing I had returned to the carcass with the old one I keep in my vehicle in order to make a positive ID. I would be interested if anyone else saw/sees it. The remains were just south of the second public access - second south of the access road where the McDonalds is located. Sorry, I don't remember the street name.

There were three small deer crossing Ocean Shores Boulevard as I turned south to visit the jetty (Surf Scooters, Pelagic Cormorants, 4 seals). One was still to be seen, grazing the median, when I returned.

The beach was littered with something that, had the setting been a forest, I would have called a fungus; but, since this was the ocean beach, it must be some kind of sea critter. I am calling them "T" ovals until I learn their identity. The fresh ones were purple and the dry ones completely clear. The base is an oval with concentric oval "growth" lines (?) and perpendicular to the base is a like oval situated cross-wise at the middle of the base, making the "T" shape. Sizes ranged from very small up to about 3 inches in length. What are they, Tweets?

Cheers! JT
--
Judy Rowe Taylor
Mukilteo, WA
Art is a voice of the heart, a song of the soul.
judyrowetaylor at comcast.net
www.enduringibis.com