While out on a 5-mile run last night around 7 p.m. I got
two good, naked-eye looks at a single shorebird on the
rocks along the Ruston Way waterfront in Tacoma. The bird
was gray above, had a relatively long black bill with no
perceptible curve to the bill, had an easily visible eye
line and yellow legs. The bird was not tall enough to be a
yellowlegs, and although it did display some slight
bobbing behavior like a Spotted Sandpiper, it was clearly
a bigger bird and the bird seemed too gray to be a Spotted
Sandpiper. Both times when I observed the bird flying away
- it was very skittish - it had nearly uniform gray wings,
with slightly darker trailing edges on the back of the
wings.

Given what I was able to observe, the best fit I can think
of is a Wandering Tattler. The last time I saw the bird,
it was heading north across Commencement Bay toward the
opposite shoreline near Browns Point.

On a more mundane note, I also heard my first Cedar
Waxwings of the season - a bird I missed on my birdathon
walk through Point Defiance Park last weekend. The
waxwings were calling from trees along 30th Street on my
run in the hill.

Happy birding!

Rob McNair-Huff
Tacoma, Wash.
rob at whiterabbits.com