Hi Tweeters,

I haven't been to Spencer Island in almost two years to the day and it has changed a lot. The plant life has changed drastically from the dike breaching. There are a lot of psuedo-shorebirds in the form of Starlings. Did see Least, and a few Western Sandpipers here and one, maybe two Greater Legs.

I had never been to Jetty Island until today. It was packed full of people and at the time I was there I am almost sure I was the only bird geek on the whole island. One Black-bellied Plover was flying around on the west side, south end. I never saw it land. At the lagoon on the rising tide (pure luck and no planning on this one) there was around 300 Western Sandpipers, some still in reddish breeding plumage. Also about 8 Semi-palmated Plovers and a few Least Sandpipers. Nice to see the shorebird migration is picking up steam. A Peregrine Falcon came through while I was on the other side of the lagoon and was motoring away from me, I couldn't tell if it had a successful sweep or not. Gull species included Bonapartes, Ring-billed, California, Glaucous-winged gulls and Caspian Terns. Some of the Ring-billed were making a laughing call I have not heard before and some of the beachgoers were laughing right back at the gulls. I almost missed seeing
the very young fluffy GW gulls on the pier next to the ferry launch back to Everett, I wished I would have noticed them sooner. I related to the young kid on the boat on the way back who was crying because he didn't want his trip to be over!

Kathy
Roosting in Kent, near Lake Meridian
(chukarbird at yahoo dot com)