Hello Tweets,

Today Dennis Murphy joined us again on his last day of birding of his week's trip to Washington,where we birded from Bottle Beach to the Raymond Airport. We began the day during the early morning,where we treated Dennis to great views of Band-tailed Pigeon, Anna's Hummingbird and Townsend's Warbler from our Fircrest residence. Overall Dennis's week trip to our state was a success with 49 new years birds along wit 4 life birds and a fair number of species added to his Washington State list. After a nice start of the day for Dennis we all decided in the last minute to head to the Bottle Beach-Westport area and what a good choice we made! The weather remained quite wet all day especially at Westport,but we all managed with great birds!

Our main highlight of the day was a winter adult HARRIS' SPARROW amongst a flock of Golden-crowned Sparrows between 2pm-2:30pm in a brushy area accessed from the end of East Elizabeth Street in Westport. This location is accessed east of Montesano Street then following this street to it's east end and walking along a leveled dirt area past several barricades beyond homes. The Harris' Sparrow allowed great views in the rain,as it associated with the Golden-crowned Sparrows along with several "Sooty"Fox Sparrows,Song Sparrows and at least 1 White-crowned Sparrow. It was a very unexpected sighting to see the Harris' Sparrow considering the weather,but it was well worth trying for it since we knew that Bill Shelmerdine and other counters had most likely this same bird during the Grays Harbor CBC back on the 23rd of December,2006. It is an excellent Grays Harbor Co. bird,which will go nicely on our Grays Harbor Co. year list! Thanks to Bill for letting us know where the bird basically was since we figured the bird initially may move around.

Additional highlights encountered at Westport included a nice 1st winter plumaged GLAUCOUS GULL along the boardwalk at Float 20. The bird was observed at very close range on the boardwalk itself,as it intermingled with other gulls and we had some thoughts of this bird being possibly the same bird that we saw yesterday at the Oyhut Wildlife Area. Dennis was able to get some great photos with his 500mm camera since we didn't have our camera handy. Whatever the bird's status it was nice to see it,especially at such close range! Nearby, in the inner bay of the marina itself viewed from Float 20 was an EARED GREBE that stayed close to a small flock of Surf Scoters. Good numbers of "pure" Western Gulls congregated from seafood areas along the western edge of the marina,where a single second winter plumaged Herring Gull was also noted. On the breakwater just west of the marina a flock of "rockbirds" consisted of 15 ROCK SANDPIPERS, 10 Surfbirds and 6 Black Turnstones,which all flew towards Westhaven State Park.

Before arriving to Westport we made a few stops beginning at the Johns River WRA,where 3 Greater Yellowlegs were among the main highlights that were observed flying along the immediate Johns River towards wet fields. Continuing on we made a thorough visit to Bottle Beach despite the constant rain,where we walked the shoreline during high tide eastward. Here,we located a flock of 200+ Dunlin with a very few Sanderlings and 13 Black-bellied Plovers that shifted around several times. 2 Northern Harriers hunted over overgrown fields immediately south of Bottle Beach and a nearby visit along Ocosta Third Street produced very brief,but good views of a calling Virginia Rail. 4 Long-billed Dowitchers were also observed flying over field just south of Bottle Beach,as well as a few Wilson's Snipes. Further west of Bottle Beach a single Peregrine Falcon was observed flying off of a set of poles along the Bay City bridge along S.R.105.

At the Tokeland Marina we located a flock of 200+ Marbled Godwits and 11 Willets with a small scattering of Dunlin that all rested on one of two docks within the marina. This flock shuffled around alot and flew back and portion of the flock flew back and forth from the docks to the shoreline. A generous scoping of nearby Willapa Bay produced a scattering of "Black"Brant foraging in the open water along on the edge of the fog line. Before leaving Tokeland we made a short stop to check Graveyard Spit,where an additional flock of 250+ Marbled Godwits was encountered.

After leaving Tokeland we worked our way homeward,as lighting conditions greatly decreased. 8 Trumpeter Swans were observed along S.R.105 at MP 16 near the mouth of the Cedar River then just east near MP 17 a gathering of 200 Marbled Godwits foraged on a small portion of exposed shoreline. Our last stop of the day was made at the Raymond Airport(accessed south of S.R.105 west of the city of Raymond). Here,we ended the day nicely at 4pm with an adult WHITE-TAILED KITE that was observed atop one of two trees immediately northeast of the runway. A single adult "Harlan's"Red-tailed Hawk and a Slate-colored Junco were also encountered from this location.Nearby in open fields immediately north of the Raymond Airport were good numbers of Cackling Geese along with smaller numbers of "Dusky"Canada Geese.


Good birding,

Ruth and Patrick Sullivan
Fircrest,WA
godwit513 at .msn.com