Tweeters,

Thwarted in our attempt to go east of the mountains by the lingering
symptoms of my wife's laryngitis, the promise of near 50 degree weather, sunshine,
and no wind made the decision to head to the coast an easy "sell". It was a
beautiful day. We were rewarded early with a first-winter Glaucous Gull on
the beach at Ocean Shores. A small group of mostly Western Gulls were being
fed bread by some beach strollers, so this gull allowed close approach (5
feet), and an excellent photo opportunity. We drove to Daman Point and were
amazed at the storm damage. Huge driftwood logs covered what is left of the road
that goes out to the tip of the point. The entire area of Salicornia on the
north side of the lake has been covered with gravel and sand, and a good deal
of the terrain has been entirely reshaped. An awesome reminder of nature's
power, to say the least. There was very little wind, so the viewing
conditions were excellent. We had close studies of 9 Snowy Owls. Two groups of 3
and 3 others in near proximity. All were a bit south and west of the south
end of the lake. A Peregrine flew over us as we were watching 7 Snow Buntings
working their way north along the line of driftwood on the outer beach. A
stop at the Tonquin Ave. side of the Game Range produced a distant view of a
Gyrfalcon. We were driving around to the Sewerage Treatment Plant to get a
closer view, and as we approached the plant, the falcon flew directly over us,
heading west to the beach. We chased it, but could not relocate it. We did
find an immature Merlin on a telephone pole which made our fourth falcon
species of the day, a Kestrel near Brady being the other one. We arrived at
Tokeland about 5:00 P.M., which was just about high tide. There were three groups
of Marbled Godwits at the marina, strung out so that counting them was
actually possible. I counted 381 in the first group, 126 in the second, and 512
in the third, for a grand total of 1019 Marbled Godwits!! There were also 16
Willets, 4 Long-billed Dowitchers, and 2 Whimbrels, an awe-inspiring
collection of shorebirds. Alas, I could not find any Long-billed Curlews, but there
was 1 Clark's Grebe in the marina which allowed very close studies from the
dock. All in all a fun day of birding.

Cheers,
George and Eva Maria Gerdts
Bainbridge Island, WA
_geopandion at aol.com_ (mailto:geopandion at aol.com)