Hello all,

Nick Page, Paul Woodcock and I birded along the Table Mountain trail this morning in search of White-tailed Ptarmigan. Nick and I birded the same trail last week and struck out in finding our target bird, but today was much different. In less than 4 hours of hiking around on top of Table Mountain, we observed three different groups of White-tailed Ptarmigan, which totaled EIGHT birds in all. As you can imagine, after striking out last week, this came as a complete and very welcome surprise.

In between trying to avoid tripping over ptarmigan, we also observed three juvenile Baird's Sandpipers on top of the mountain. It was a memorable encounter as the sandpipers landed (and began foraging) on the same snow bank as us, less than 15 yards away.

Here are a couple digiscoped pictures I took of our highlights:

www.houstonflores.com/images/WTPT.jpg
www.houstonflores.com/images/BASA.jpg

Also, on the way home, Nick and I observed something that neither of us had ever seen. On Marine Drive in Bellingham, we observed a flock of ~ 100 Ring-billed Gulls and ~15 Bonaparte's Gulls "flycatching" low over the road. It was really weird...The gulls were swarming, swooping in every direction, and they would contort their heads to grab bugs out of the air.

Good Migrations,

Houston Flores
Bellingham, WA
houstonflores AT hotmail.com
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