Subject: [Tweeters] Snowy Plovers-- Grayland Beach State Park
Date: Sep 26 08:33:30 2006
From: Wayne C. Weber - contopus at telus.net


Maxine and Tweeters,

The SNOWY PLOVERS are still at Midway Beach. I birded there
briefly on Sept. 17 after the Westport pelagic trip, and saw at least
5 SNOWY PLOVERS. They were feeding among flotsam and jetsam
on the beach, about 1/2 mile north of the west end of Midway Beach
Road. This makes twice in two tries in the last 2 years that I have
seen them there.

For the record, the Midway Beach location is actually part of
Grayland Beach State Park. The park appears to be in two sections:
the southern section, whose southern boundary is Midway Beach Road,
is undeveloped, but there are State Parks signs and a restroom there.

The spot that Maxine described-- accessed from the campground
at Grayland Beach State Park-- is only about a mile north of where
I saw the plovers, and about 1-1/2 miles north of Midway Beach
Road. It sounds like this whole stretch of beach may be a good area
for the plovers.

By the way, I noticed a major change in the beach topography this
September compared with a year ago. It looks like a large area
of beach was washed over by a storm surge or extra high tide over
the winter. Areas which were heavily vegetated on my last visit were
swept clean of vegetation. This is good news for the Snowy Plovers:
one of the main problems they face is the invasion of what used to
be open beach by the introduced European beachgrass (Ammophila
arenaria). Anything which decreases the amount of beachgrass
and increases the amount of open sand, even in the short term, is
good for Snowy Plovers.

Of all the areas I've seen along the Washington coast, the
Midway Beach area has one of the widest swaths of open beach
(at least 500 yards) between the normal high tide line and the
continuously vegetated dunes. Maybe this is why Snowy Plovers
seem to like the area so much.

Wayne C. Weber
Delta, BC
contopus at telus.net




----- Original Message -----
From: "michael bacon" <baconmf at verizonmail.com>
To: <Tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Sent: Monday, September 25, 2006 12:12 PM
Subject: [Tweeters] snowy plovers-grayland state park


hi tweeters- i read where folks have missed on midway beach for seeing SNOWY
PLOVERS- i never find them there...last monday,though-sept 18, we wentinto
grayland s.p.- drove to the primitive camp circle ~ # 100-found a small path
to the beach-there were 2 people w/ a scope - i looked where they were
pointed + saw several SNOWY PLOVERS-running around- at least 5 w/ some least
s/p/s-so maybe that's worth a try!

cheers, maxine reid-tulalip bay, wa
baconmf at verizonmail.com

--
_______________________________________________
Get your free Verizonmail at www.verizonmail.com

_______________________________________________
Tweeters mailing list
Tweeters at u.washington.edu
http://mailman1.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/tweeters