Hello Tweeters:

We went to West Seattle yesterday morning (November 23rd) and walked from Seacrest Marina Park to just shy of Spud Fish and Chips. It was a gorgeous day with the sun shining. In the distance you could see a scarf of low lying clouds draped on the Olympics. The boat activity was high with the Bremerton and Bainbridge ferries, tug boats, barges and numerous little motor boats going about their business on Puget Sound.

We saw a lot of DOUBLE CRESTED CORMORANTS and GLOUCUS WINGED GULLS at first with not much else (one SONG SPARROW and a pair of HOUSE FINCHES) except of course the ubiquitous unidentifiable gulls that we still haven?t taken the time to learn to ID. We did see a glimpse of a pair of black headed gulls but they were gone before we could really get a close look at them. Once Harbor Ave SW turned into Alki Ave SW around the Duwamish Head Greenbelt area things began to pick up with sightings of HARLEQUIN DUCKS, multiple groups of HORNED and WESTERN GREBES, fairly large flotillas of BUFFLEHEADS, a lone COMMON GOLDEN EYE, several SURF SCOTERS, a flock of BLACK TURNSTONES with a few SURF BIRDS sprinkled in (going in the direction of Spud Fish and Chips) and a larger flock of SURFBIRDS with the BLACK TURNSTONES (on our way back to Seacrest Marina Park). The SURFBIRDS and BLACK TURNSTONES were a treat because we were only about 20 or so feet away from them. We stood on the sea wall and looked down at them. We could hear them clearly and see them playing ?king of the hill?. I assume from their perspective a rock is a hill. I got some great video footage of their activities.

We saw a number of mammals ? a harbor seal and a couple of sea lions (one living and one washed up on the beach just beyond Bonair Dr. SW where the rock retaining wall ends and the beach begins). Oh, and we saw a small dog skate boarding .. no lie.

Cheers,

Keith and Nif Unterschute
Seattle