Hi Tweets,

I went to Tokeland yesterday via Bottle Beach and Westport. What a glorious day! I arrived at Bottle Beach at around 9:30. From the trail to the beach I immediately noticed a large white bird, perched on a snag in the field to the right of the path, which I instantly presumed it a Snowy. Getting the binos to my eyes revealed a White-tailed Kite. I observed it for about thirty minutes, before it took off to hunt. It flew around the field hovering five or six times searching for prey, before finally plummeting to the ground from around 70+ feet and then taking off with a nice chunky vole. It returned to the perch to feast but after a couple of minutes a Bald Eagle flew over and the Kite took off to the tall Spruces by the beach. After the eagle had gone it returned to its perch to finish the vole. This was my first close experience with this species and what a treat it was! A female Northern Harrier also flew across the field.

By the time I got to the beach the tide was high and there were only a few Mallards and Pintails in the bay, no shorebirds.

A Spotted Sandpiper was at the wildlife area at John's River. Ryan Shaw heard another at the Boeing site in Renton on Wed when we looked (unsuccessfully) for the Slaty Back Gull.

On the outer piers at Westport, there were Surf Scoters, Common Loons, Pelagic Cormorants, Western Sandpipers (by the carpark) and Horned Grebes but was mostly quite.

Midway Beach produced about 100 Western Sandpipers and a handful of Sanderlings, but was also very quiet, but I was only there about twenty minutes.

Tokeland was unusually quiet as well. The usual flock of Marbled Godwits were there, along with the handful of Willets and Dowitchers, but I only saw three Common Loon and Bufflehead around the piers. I spent about half an hour talking to a long time dock-crabber, who complaining that there were no more crab to catch from the pier.

I returned to Bottle Beach to see if the Kite was still there and it was, still perched on the same snag in the field. So I spent another hour watching him. At one point, a female Northern Harrier flew in and got the attention of the Kite, who immediately gave chase. They got in to a mid air scrap before the Kite shooed off the upstart Harrier. Soon after I watched as he went hunting again and on the second attempt successfully caught another small rodent. Two out of three attempts that I witnessed seemed like an impressive success rate.

There are several pictures of the Kite at my pbase site, including a couple from the mid air exchange and one showing it in freefall from about 70ft. Fun Day!

http://www.pbase.com/rodg/jan

Rod Gilbert,
Olympia