Hi Tweets,

If you've been out near the coast recently you've surely seen Red-necked Phalaropes. Barbara and I found five of them first in a farm pond near Grays River in western Wahkiakum County on May 7th, then yesterday (5/8) we stopped at the new DFW freshwater marsh mentioned by Dennis Paulson in a posting earlier this week. It's located northwest of South Bend in Pacific County, and we found several hundred Red-necked Phalaropes there along with dowitchers, yellowlegs, peeps, and assorted ducks. This marsh, by the way, stretches nearly a half-mile along US 101 and includes a unit further west on the north side of the highway just before the bend south toward Bay Center. Our final stop yesterday was Bottle Beach where we found only a single Red Knot among the dowitchers. Across SR 105 at the 3rd Ocosta marsh the lone visible inhabitant was a Red-necked Phalarope.

Good birding!

Paul Webster
Seattle
paul.webster AT comcast.net