Dear Tweeters,

Sorry for late report!

Today at Jensen Access (Fir Island) were lots and lots of shorebirds. Most of them were way out there, as it was low tide when I visited. I saw at least 2000 Dunlin, about fifty Black-bellied Plover, and several hundred Westerns.

Bird of the day was a heard-only Long-billed Curlew.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know!

If I had not had the opportunity to listen to some Long-billed Curlews during a visit to Benton County earlier this spring, I would not even have recognized this call. It consisted of several "wee-urr" notes, followed by a descending series of spluttering notes. I looked all around the mud flata, and made a thorough scoping of all the dry fields in the area, but could not find any curlews!

The other cool birds of the day were at the Game Range--at least two Green Herons, my first of the year in Skagit.

Yours truly,

Gary Bletsch




Gary Bletsch ? Near Lyman, Washington (Skagit County), USA ? garybletsch at yahoo.com ? ?