Hi All,

This weekend my brother Dan and I did a loop route of the Olympic
Peninsula. We visited Cape Flattery, Neah Bay, and Kalalock on Saturday
and then birded Ocean Shores and the Brady Loop yesterday. We left the
fog behind west of the Elwha River early Saturday morning. Sunshine and
the beautiful scenary prevailed after that.

Quite frankly we struggled a bit with finding birds on Saturday on our
North Coast stops. Although we had a few gull flocks in Neah Bay, they
were non-existent on the beaches around Kalalock. Sea-watching efforts
were difficult as the bulk of the activity was distant. Highlights on
Saturday were a cooperative NORTHERN PYGMY-OWL along the Cape Flattery
trail, a WESTERN MEADOWLARK at the Hobuck Beach, and a BROWN PELICAN at
the mouth of the Hoh River.

Sea-watching from Pt. Brown jetty on Sunday morning yielded the same
results as Saturday - most of the bird activity was distant. The strong
east wind on both days was likely a factor. We didn't have much success
with shorebirds either so we decided to spend the remainder of Sunday
birding the Brady Loop area. Amongst the 200+ Trumpeter Swans and 25+
Tundra Swans in the area was a BEWICK'S SWAN. There were also 12 SNOW
GEESE with the biggest swan flock. I guess WESTERN SCRUB-JAYS have
become established in the area as we had three of them. We also had one
Harlan's Red-tailed Hawk.

Cheers and good birding,
Brad Waggoner
Bainbridge Island
mailto:wagtai at sounddsl.com