Tweeters,

Just got back from a second great day of birding with Gina and the
Cottets. Yesterday, we got the Whooper, Emperor, and, yes, the King
Eider. We had squalls and gale force winds up at Semiahmoo after very
pleasant birding earlier in Snohomish. We got the bird on our second
eye-watering effort. Very tiring.

Today, the Long-billed showed up for us out in the open waters to the
left shortly after sun up and the Thick-billed followed in the company
of two Commons over by the lighthouse, but we dipped on an afternoon try
for the Black-headed in very poor viewing conditions. There was a bird
we thought probable among the Bonaparte's, but unable to detect the
orange bill from a great distance through mild fog, we were reluctant to
be satisfied with it as a life bird.

The Long-billed was alone, as usual, but we had lots of Marbled all
around and were not seeing any Ancients. The bird was viewed only a
short time and it went down before I could see it. It was never to be
found again. As the tide came in, the Ancients began to show and the
Marbled dwindled to almost nothing by the time we left at 11:30. The
very visible rip tide was being worked heavily around 11, and Ancients
were everywhere. At first, many were only surfacing the front portion
of the head before slipping back into the deeps. Later, they could be
seen flying by in flocks of a dozen individuals and sitting on the calm,
windless waters in similar numbers.

This was an excellent weekend.

Patricia S. Lott
Seattle, WA
mail to: VariedThrush at comcast.net