I was at Kalaloch yesterday, having bailed on the last day of our stay at
Cape Alava due to rain and teenager girls not mixing. There were 4 groups of
about 40 or so western sandpipers all within a couple hundred yards of each
other. While idly looking north I happened to catch a peregrine in full
motor flying south against a pretty stiff wind. It was about 5 feet off the
ground and moving fast. As it got within about 250 meters of the furthest
north group of shorebirds, that group flew south, and the other groups flew
north to form one big group, so by the time the falcon got there all the
shorebirds has coalesced into one flock. As the falcon approached to within
a few seconds of the flock the shorebirds all rose up as one, and flew back
and forth in a fast ripple effect which caught the undersides of their
bodies and flashed twice in quick succession. This happened right in front
of me and the bright sunlight from the flash was dazzling. The falcon sort
of shuddered as it came up to the flock and this super organism turned on a
dime, flashing again, and ducked around the hurling predator, which pulled
up a good 2 or 3 feet past the flock and ended up empty talonned for its
effort. The falcon rose up, flying almost straight up in the air and I
thought it might stoop on the shorebirds, but the birds were now in a long
low line, just inches above the sand, all beating wings northbound, upwind.
The falcon then headed south into a thick mass of gulls but kept flying into
the trees out of view.

About ten minutes later the falcon came back, this time riding the wind and
compared to its fast and hard wingbeats, it now seemed almost nonchalant.
It was much higher off the ground and when it passed over the shorebirds
further north they all ignored each other. I presumed that the falcon had
grabbed prey south out of view and something about its flight alerted the
shorebirds that it was not hunting on this pass.

The previous day at Cape Alava as I was stumbling out of bed and walking out
to the water to wash my sleepy face a peregrine dipped out of the trees
behind me and nabbed a lone bird just north of me, then flew off northward.
A crow came out off the trees and started to protest, and a second falcon
appeared, rapidly calling kikikikikik and the crow quickly ducked back into
the trees.

This was the sea otter survey week and I ran into a researcher who said the
population is gaining at about 8% a year. We saw several just offshore
including a nice look at a mom with a pup. Just north of Sand point a pretty
fresh dead sea otter was in good enough shape to touch to feel that
magnificent fur.

Rob Sandelin
Naturalist, Writer
Snohomish, WA