Just thought I would post on the off chance an out-of-towner is planning a
trip to the Mouth of the Columbia. Nothing terribly unexpected. I had planned
to hike up Saddleback Mountain. Alas, the road to the parking lot was sealed
off by State Parks, so I made for Fort Stevens.

The Swamp Sparrow was in the tall grass to the east of the floodplain behind
parking area C. There was also at least one Song Sparrow in the vicinity as
well, so observe gingerly. Soaring raptors included multiple singles of
Red-tails including a single Dark Morph near Gerhardt [sp?], Northern Harrier
[adult male] and 3 Turkey Vulture. Scoping off the Jetty Platform yielded up a
handful of Northbound Loon, only one positively identified as a Pacific. The
only specific tubenose was a Northern Fulmar, though I glimpsed a couple other
ephemeral procellariid-type shadows. In the breakwater there were hundreds of
Surf Scoter, several Western Grebe and one Red-necked Grebe. Down the river
on the banks behind parking area D there were about 1000 Dunlin and a handful
of Sanderling. On the calmer water even more Surf Scoter were present here,
several score of Mallard, Pintail, singles of Shoveler, 100+ Bufflehead and a
half dozed or so Horned Grebe, several coming into alternate. Echoing a
comment made on Tweeters there were many hundreds of Scaup upriver of the Mouth ,
and also around seaside-where 101 crosses water north of 26. I only bothered
to identify a couple dozen but found a pretty even split between Lesser and
Greater, at least of those I checked. There was a single adult eagle scoping
out from the Mouth of Columbia, and a few Sterna Tern sp., near the
Washington side of the mouth, though they were simply too far to identify positively.
Several Kittiwake flew over during the course of the afternoon. The little
pines around the parking area were crawling with Golden-crowned Kinglet.
Weather was the height of temperance.

Best wishes and Good birding,
Blake Matheson
Carmel California & Portland Oregon



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