Hi Tweets,

A small group of intrepid birders joined Barbara and me for a Seattle Audubon Birdathon "winter" trip to Grays Harbor County and Tokeland yesterday. We left the 272nd St Park n' Ride at 6:10 am and drove south into increasingly threatening weather. Our short stop at Nisqually NWR netted 20 species, but snow started and halted the dawn chorus as the birds waited it out. A Barn Swallow and a Tree Swallow took shelter together atop a light under the eave of the refuge headquarters, and only part of the group could see the Double-crested Cormorant that flew over the building.

The snow continued on SR 8 through the Black Hills west of Olympia and we drove through three to four inches of snow near Summit Lake, but the accumulation lessened on the west slope. We opted for the Brady Loop Rd where we could bird from the cars. We found a Western Scrub-Jay, then a few starlings, then two Whimbrels amongst the gulls 100 feet from the road. The snow lessened as we turned south onto Foster Rd, and we stopped and found a few Least Sandpipers and two Greater Yellowlegs sharing a small pond with a few American Wigeon, Green-winged Teal, and a pair of Northern Pintail. When the snow stopped we got out at the DFW parking area and quickly found more than a dozen of the usual suspects at the nearby riparian area: an Osprey, a Red-tailed Hawk, a Ring-necked Pheasant, Downy Woodpecker, Rufus Hummingbird, Northern Flicker, Barn and Violet-green Swallows, Savannah, Song, White-crowned and Golden-crowned Sparrows, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Common Yellowthroat, and Red-winged Blackbird. There was a single Western Sandpiper at a pond on the way back to US 12.

We had a rain shower at Friends' Landing, but netted Caspian Tern and another scrub-jay. A Killdeer buzzed our car just before our Aberdeen coffee stop. We crossed the Chehalis River and stopped at the Bishop Athletic Complex west of Cosmopolis. At one of the empty fields we saw a Violet-green Swallow entering a nest-box, several Least Sandpipers and a single American Pipit.

We got to Bottle Beach State Park nearly two hours before high tide, and flushed a Wilson's Snipe just before the beach. A flock of about 200 Brant flew past followed briefly by a flock of shorebirds, including Dunlin and dowitchers. A dozen Black-bellied Plovers from the flock settled down and waited for high tide with us. We did some birding along the newly-cleared parts of the park back from the beach, and found a Great Blue Heron, Bewick's Wren, Chestnut-backed Chickadee, Orange-crowned Warbler, Common Yellowthroat, and Savannah, Song, White- and Golden-crowned Sparrows.

After lunch at Twin Harbors SP (Golden-crowned Kinglet, Pine Siskin, Townsend's Warbler, Spotted Towhee, and Dark-eyed Junco), we went to Westport Marina, finding a dozen or more Common Loon, all three cormorants, Surf and White-winged Scoters, a couple of Black Turnstones, Pigeon Guillemot, and assorted gulls. A lone and tame Marbled Godwit foraged along the beach at Half Moon Bay, where there was a much bigger flock of mixed shorebirds than we had found at Bottle Beach.

On the beach at Warrenton Cannery Rd we watched a flock of 30 Sanderlings with 2 Dunlin, racing on foot along the beach northward and foraging underway. It was amusing to watch the Dunlin try to keep up on foot, but having to resort to short flights to stay with the running Sanderlings.

At Tokeland, the wind fiinally lessened, and we enjoyed beautiful warm late-afternoon sunshine with about 800 each of Marbled Godwits, dowitchers, and Dunlin, plus 4 Whimbrels, and 3 Willets foraging mostly on the mud at the west side of the marina. In the water were Common Loons, a single Western Grebe, 4 Horned Grebes in spring dress, plus shovelers, pintail, a pair of Greater Scaup, and several Bufflehead. Just before we left a Short-billed Dowitcher trio arrived from somewhere on Willapa Bay calling "tututu" as they reached the marina.

We broke off birding at five p.m. with 80 species seen, in order to make the drive home in daylight. As we came out of the Black Hills we ran into a rain and snow storm that lasted nearly to Tacoma. For us it was a long and tiring, but interesting trip with an alert and pleasant group of fellow birders.

Good birding -- and better weather!

Paul and Barbara Webster
Seattle
paul.websterATcomcast.net