Four of us did our annual Bird A Thon on Whidbey Island on May 16. We had our best year ever with 108 species, blowing away our previous record of 98. We got the 0630 ferry to the island and the Ewing Road wetlands gave us an excellent start. Following are highlights at some of the stops.

Ewing Road - an Osprey on a nest- Pectoral Sandpipers - Long-billed Dowitchers - Wilson's Phalaropes - Greater White-fronted Geese - Purple Martins and Cliff Swallows

Sunlight Beach - Western Sandpipers - Semipalmated Plovers - Greater Yellowlegs and at the dike - Virginia Rails - Ring-necked Pheasant

Lincoln Street access - Brant - Black-bellied Plover - Caspian Tern

Earth Sanctuary - Wood Duck - Yellow Warbler - Western Tanager - Common Yellowthroat - Black-headed Grosbeak

Double Bluff - Rufous Hummingbird which we always get at the park at the end of the road.

Crockett Lake had many duck species, but no new shorebirds. Keystone ferry area had Pigeon Guillemots and Rhinoceros Auklets.

Fort Casey SP - we were greeted by the "quick-three-beers" call of the Olive-sided Flycatcher which we see here every year - a Great Horned Owl was in the trees behind the rest rooms - 2 House Wrens were calling and we saw one - Wilson's Warbler - Yellow-rumped Warbler.

Morris Road - American Kestrel

Hastie Lake Road beach - Pacific Loon and two Black Oystercatchers that flew in while scanning the beach.

Dugualla Bay - Ring-billed Gull - Dunlin - at Dugualla Lake some Cinnamon Teal

Rosario Beach SP - Orange-crowned Warblers and another Black Oystercatcher

Stanwood Sewage Treatment Ponds - we can always pick up a few new birds here - Ruddy Ducks - Bufflehead - Spotted Sandpiper - Ring-necked Ducks - an added surprise was hearing the downward "whinny" of a Sora in the natural wetland just inside the fence.

What really surprised us, on an otherwise good day, was that we did not see any of the three possible mergansers and we did not get an American Coot.

Hugh Jennings
Bellevue, WA
hughbirder at earthlink.net