Hello All
I had a great day of birding out at Ocean Shores today. The weather was great and birds were everywhere.
My first stop was at the Hoquiam STP, where there were lots of migrants along the entrance road including tanagers, Wilson's and Black-throated Gray Warblers, etc. In the ponds were a few Red-necked Phalaropes, but not much else.
With afternoon high tides, I decided to spend the rest of the morning at the Pt. Brown Jetty. There were many birds around the jetty the entire time I was there, including minimally 150,000 Sooty Shearwaters, 1200 Brown Pelicans, and 9000 Heermann's Gulls. The shearwaters were in two large rafts on the water, plus a constant stream just yards from the tip of the jetty, and another stream several miles out at sea. The only unexpected bird was an ARCTIC TERN flying a short ways from the jetty. There were good numbers of rock shorebirds on the jetty including 2 Wandering Tattlers.
I next birded the Ocean Shores Game Range, in which I hiked from the STP to Tonquin Avenue and back. Here I found a flock of 13 BUFF-BREASTED SANDPIPERS, which were in the drier salicornia plateaus just across the main (troublesome) canal from the STP. As the tide finally started to come in, I was surrounded by thousands of Western Sandpipers which flooded into the game range before moving on to the outer beach. While walking back to my car, I had a LAPLAND LONGSPUR fly over, calling.
I birded Damon Point, but didn't find anything of note, except 4 Marbled Godwits to add to the shorebird species tally for the day. My last birding was on the outer beach side of Ocean Shores. I started at the Butterclam beach access and walked the beach to the south several miles. The tide was high and there were thousands of shorebirds roosting. Black-bellied Plovers totaled 2000 birds, and Western Sandpiper close to 30,000. Scattered through the flocks were 52 Red Knots and 7 Dunlin.
That's about all,
Charlie Wright
Bonney Lake, Washington