Hi Tweets,

The folks are up at the Warm Beach cabin, so I took my kayaks for a spin to the mouth of Hatt Slough of the Stillaguamish River. This is the NE corner of Port Susan and the boat access is off of Marine View drive. The best time appears to be about 1 hour before high tide when some of the extensive flats are still exposed and the birds are getting slowly pushed together.

On Sunday I counted:

103 Black-bellied Plovers - all but three were adults. They were still mostly in breeding plumage (is there such a thing as 80% plumage?), and very worn looking
17 Greater Yellowlegs - worn adults
8 Least Sandpiper
2 Killdeer -residents
1 Short-billed Dowitcher - an extremely worn adult and thankfully was kind enough to give me a tu-tu call.

Looking at my records, next week the larger flocks of juvenile Western Sandpipers should be showing up.

Good Birding,

Marcus Roening
Tacoma WA

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