Many thanks to all of you who responded to my request last week for good
birding spots near Browns Point and recommended that I try Dash Point
State Park. That was good advice, and I am glad I stopped there.

However, I expanded my trip after I found time to browse through a book I
bought from Seattle Audubon at the Shorebird Festival. In A Birder?s
Guide to Washington (written by Hal Opperman and members of WOS), a
section called ?Tacoma and Vicinity? by Bill Shelmerdine and Thais Bock,
starts about 16 miles north of Browns Point at Des Moines Marina and
continues six or seven miles south of BP along the Sound to Commencement
Bay (and on around Point Defiance, but I didn't have time to do that
part). In case you are unfamiliar with the book, the directions were
completely accurate and easy to follow. It was a beautiful drive, and I
even saw some birds! The most memorable were--

At the Des Moines Marina we stood with two Rock Doves on a bank 3-4 feet
above a little inlet while a pair of Canadian Geese, five pairs of
Mallards, and three Gadwall swam around and ate their lunch, etc. (I
always wonder whether it is good for birds to be so friendly; will it
endanger their lives later?) Then, at Saltwater State Park, there were
fifteen (15) Black Scoter swimming, diving, etc, rather close to shore
but moving steadily away as two young boys and a dog tried to sneak
along the beach to get opposite the birds.

At Browns Point, my friend and I walked to the Lighthouse Park?a few
blocks from her home--but saw no shorebirds although Shelmerdine and
Bock (more or less) promised Marbled Murrelets, birds I had never seen.
However the views of Vashon Island and the Sound from there were worth
the walk anyway.

Afew miles farther south on SR 509, from a pullout just beyond Crow?s
Nest Marina on Commencement Bay, we saw 16 Brandt?s Cormorants lolling
about on the log jams, and?-maybe the highlight of the trip--a Western
Pelican flew over us as we drove (very slowly in a traffic jam) across
the Puyallup River bridge to get to I-5 on the way home!

Darlene
Cinebar














Darlene

A man should never be ashamed to own he has been in the wrong which is
but saying, in other words, that he is wiser today than he was
yesterday. --Alexander Pope