Tweeters,
Sorry to be so slow with this--Alan & I had a Snowy Plover at Midway
Beach last Friday (5-6-05) around 4:30 PM. The road is blocked at the
beach access. (Hallelujah!!) We parked at the gate and walked the
short distance to the end of the road where water was pooled. Seeing
some Dunlin across the pooled water, I asked Alan to set up the scope.
By then I'd seen a rounder shape and the bird turned out to be our
Snowy. It hit me like a ton of bricks--my lifer, although I've walked a
good deal on this beach looking for Snowy during several occasions.
Finally lucky, and I believe the closed access helped. (Plus, we didn't
have to walk so much.) We had a lengthy look from fairly close range,
60-80 feet maybe, and both got to examine the bird. It almost seemed to
disappear when it turned its back, same color as the sand, although
darker than I'd anticipated. Nivosus, I guess, possibly a breeding
male. We'd had good looks at a Semipalmated P. a few hours earlier at
the Westport jetty so we both felt sure of this identification. The
Semi looks like it has a headlamp to me, but I had to look hard to see
the same white forehead on the Snowy because the white supercillium area
made it indistinct, camouflaged. At the scope a second time, the bird
finally flew a short distance, but relocating it was difficult and we
were both satisfied.

One truck was visible on the beach to the north with two young people on
the hood. If there's access at Grayland, they may have driven down from
there. They did not come as far south as Midway, and we only saw the
one vehicle, whereas there used to be 2 or 3 when we visited.

As we got back into the car, we heard nearby, Tu, Tu, Tu--Greater
yellowlegs. I found the injured bird in a pond just north of the road.

A few hours earlier, we'd had a breeding Wandering Tattler on the
Westport jetty following the directions of a returning fisherman whom
I'd asked about gray birds on the rocks. His description of a
"silver-gray" bird sounded like breeding plumage to me and our short,
but joint pounding journey was rewarded with a long encounter from 30
feet away. (Great toes on this species!) Apparently there were
"thousands" (tens of thousands?) of shorebirds migrating north a couple
hours before, "darkening the sky like black smoke". We heard about it
from two or three groups all saying mid-morning 10:30 or 11, about 90
minutes before high tide.

Patricia Lott
Seattle