I spent the past two days birding out at the coast with the following
highlights:

5/6/2009

Pe Ell
Western Scrub-Jay - 2

Potter Slough near South Bend
Cinnamon Teal - 2M

67th St, Long Beach
Olive-sided Flycatcher - 1
TOWNSEND'S SOLITAIRE - 1

Oysterville (beach side)
Sooty Shearwater - 500 flying north
Marbled Godwit - 20 migrating north
Ruddy Turnstone - 1
Parasitic Jaeger - 1 flying south
Marbled Murrelet - 2 flying south

Leadbetter Point
Ruddy Turnstone - 5
Orange-crowned Warbler on a nest

Long Beach/Seaview
Eurasian Collared-Dove - 1

North Head Lighthouse 17:20-18:35
Northern Shoveler - 1 flying with a Common Murre
PINK-FOOTED SHEARWATER - 2
Sooty Shearwater - 2
Parasitic Jaeger - 3+


Fort Canby
Turkey Vulture - 2 feasting on a dead otter
NORTHERN PYGMY-OWL - 1 perched close along the trail up to McKenzie Head!


5/7/2009

North Head Lighthouse 06:00-07:15
Northern Shoveler - 20 flying north
MANX SHEARWATER - 1 flying north
Brown Pelican - 230
Black Oystercatcher - 2
Parasitic Jaeger - 1
Common Murre - 4,730 mostly flying south
Rhinocerous Auklet - 1

Fort Canby
Ruffed Grouse - 1 drumming

Chinook Valley Road
15+ Orange-crowned and 6 Wilson's Warblers in one group of trees

Fort Columbia State Park
Ruffed Grouse - 1 drumming
HERMIT WARBLER - 1 seemingly pure singing male
Red Crossbill - 40

Potter Slough
Cinnamon Teal - 1
Greater Yellowlegs - 85
Red-necked Phalarope - 3

Tokeland
Long-billed Curlew - 1 at Graveyard Spit
Ruddy Turnstone - 45 near the marina

Gould Road
WESTERN BLUEBIRD - 1 catching bugs from the cranberry bogs

Midway Beach Road
Red-necked Phalarope - 47
Horned Lark - 2

Warrenton Cannery Road
Sooty Shearwater - 29,420 in just under an hour, not counting very
distant birds of which there were many!
Parasitic Jaeger - 3

Midway Beach (outer beach south of Grayland beach access) - massive
feeding frenzy with swarms of loons, shearwaters and gulls. My quick
check of the outer beach turned into more than two hours!
Pacific Loon - 4,000+, mostly on the water
Sooty Shearwater - 20,000+, many on the water with dense flying flocks
circling about
Brown Pelican - 30
Pelagic Cormorant - 20
Bonaparte's Gull - 25+
HEERMANN'S GULL - 1
Mew Gull - 2
Ring-billed Gull - 300
California Gull - 500
HERRING GULL - 1
THAYER'S GULL - probably 1
Western Gull - 6,000
Glaucous-winged X Western Gull - 200
Glaucous-winged Gull - 400
Caspian Tern - 50
Common Tern - 1,350+, several flocks
Parasitic Jaeger - 2
Common Murre - 50
California Sea Lion - 4

Good birding,
Ryan Merrill
Kirkland, WA