Hi Tweets,

Being snookered by the weatherman yesterday I went birding on the coast with Penny Rose and a birder from
New Zealand, Brent Stephenson. Despite the persistent light to moderate rain we had a good day, searching
mainly for shorebirds. The highlight was a 1st summer Franklin's Gull at the Hoquiam sewage pond. There were
about 100 California Gulls, a half dozen Ring-billed, 1-2 Mews and 50 GW and hybrids present also. After several
minutes of observation the Franklin's Gull flew off towards the harbor.

Other than that our highlights were the large numbers of Brown Pelicans and Heerman's Gulls at Washaway
beach north of Tokeland and the point blank scope looks at Wilson's Snipe and Bittern at Nisqually. There
was also a male Purple Martin at the Tokeland marina, although we didn't see any activity at the nest boxes there.

--
Jim Flynn
merlinmania at comcast.net
Seattle, WA