Hi Tweets,

Barbara and I joined David & Penny Koyama to bird the south side of Grays Harbor on Friday the 7th. Bottle Beach was good two hours before high tide, about 40 Red Knots, lots of other peeps, just about all the birds in alternate plumage, a colorful crowd! It was interesting to watch the Ruddy Turnstones push up the vegetation on the rocks to get at prey underneath. We saw a crisp-looking male Western Tanager at Bottle Beach State Park, and a Western Kingbird and American Pipits at the Bishop Athletic Complex near Aberdeen.

We arrived in time to watch a feeding frenzy just offshore at Grayland Beach SP, with around 100 pelicans, lots of gulls of various sorts, Pacific and Common Loons, even a few the Sooty Shearwaters from further out stopped, too. Midway Beach is still flooded, but yielded a few ducks and a single Red-necked Phalarope. We found somewhat diminished numbers of Marbled Godwits at Tokeland, not really a big surprise, otherwise just a few dowitchers and a couple of Ruddy Turnstones there, too. We relocated the Glaucous Gull Brian Bell found there earlier in the week.

We took a run down to the new DFW mega-marsh on US 101 northwest of South Bend, got some ducks there, about 30 Greater Yellowlegs and a small assortment of other peeps -- Leasts, Dunlin, dowitchers (LB as far as we could tell). I don't know yet if this out-of-the-way location will prove as good as the great birding areas nearer the ocean. Our last sight at sunset was a field east of Aberdeen with some three dozen Whimbrels scattered about. Thanks to Brian Bell, Marv Breece and Ruth Sullivan for their reports. Our list for the day totalled 84 species.

Good birding!

Paul Webster
Seattle
paul.websterATcomcast.net