Subject: [Tweeters] Tokeland Field Trip 9/13/08
Date: Sep 15 06:16:26 2008
From: Scrubjay323 at aol.com - Scrubjay323 at aol.com


Tweets,

Saturday I led a Black Hills Audubon filed trip to Tokeland with stops at
John's River, Bottle Beach, Midway Beach, and Westport. The weather was wild
with fog and wind at various places but the birding turned out pretty good.
We ran into Charlie Wright and his buddies at most of our stops. If you have
to have a spotter they are as good as you can get. lol

Our first stop was John's River which was pretty foggy but with no wind.
Not much moving initially but as we walked along the trail we hit a bunch of
sparrows near the first cluster of trees. On the ground we had SAVANNAH, SONG,
and WHITE-CROWNED SPARROWS. A LINCOLN'S SPARROW flew into the brush along
the trail and then the warblers started showing up. We had great looks at
male TOWNSEND'S WARBLERS, YELLOW WARBLERS, and YELLOWTHROAT.

The fog lifted a bit and we were able to see NORTHERN HARRIER, RED-TAILED
HAWKS, and a low flying TURKEY VULTURE off over the field. On the river was a
WESTERN GREEBE, SHORT-BILLED DOWITCHERS, COMMON MERGANSERS, BELTED
KINGFISHER, and GREAT BLUE HERON.

At bottle Beach there was a new bridge over the creek and the fog rolled
back in as we arrived. We did manage to see WESTERN SANDPIPERS, BLACK-BELLIED
PLOVER, KILLDEER, SEMI-PALMATED PLOVER, SHORT-BILLED DOWITCHER, BAIRD'S
SANDPIPER, and an AMERICAN GOLDEN PLOVER. The birds were really skittish with the
fog and the breeze and moved around quite a bit. Charlie's group managed to
see a couple more species, but I never got good enough looks to ID them.

At Tokeland there were the expected MARBLED GODWITS, another SHORT-BILLED
DOWITCHER, WHIMBREL, and WILLETS. These were right under our feet outside the
road to the fishing pier. There were also many BROWN PELICAN and HEERMAN'S
GULLS. Graveyard Spit had only gulls and a couple of CASPIAN TERNS. We also
saw a COMMON LOON out on the water.

Our next stop was Midway Beach in a surreal scene. The fog had rolled back
in and the wind was howling. At the first pond we saw RED-NECKED PHALAROPES,
LEAST SANDPIPERS. PECTORAL SANDPIPERS, and a WILSON'S SNIPE. We walked to
the shoreline and saw nothing. We looped to the north into the wind and headed
back toward the dunes and found a small flock of SANDERLINGS hunkered down
facing into the wind. Off to the side behind a clump of grass was a single
SNOWY PLOVER. As we headed back to the car we flushed an AMERICAN KESTRAL.

Our last stop was the groins at Westport where the sun came out again. It
was breezy and we saw nothing new here.

All told we saw 58 species for the day with 19 shorebird species. All told
it was a good day.



Phil Kelley
scrubjay323 at aol.com
Lacey, WA
360-459-1499



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