Greetings All


Gene's historical perspective is well worth considering. Certainly the seeming expansion of Marbled Godwits into Dungeness Bay supports the occurrence of MAGO as a wintering species in WA as a new event.


However, I've always wondered what would happen if the godwit/willet flock at Tokeland just shuffled across to the tip of Leadbetter. How long before we figured that out...?


I know that Widrig birded Leadbetter nearly weekly for a year or two in the 70s.
Anyway, there seems two major possibilities:
1) MAGO and Willet started to stage/winter at Tokeland, and therefore WA, in the 70s/80s
or 2) They were roosting somewhere else, with Leadbetter being the best alternative.


Cheers
Steve Mlodinow





-----Original Message-----
From: Eugene and Nancy Hunn <enhunn323 at comcast.net>
To: 'Steven Mlodinow' <sgmlod at aol.com>; Tweeters at u.washington.edu
Sent: Thu, Oct 7, 2010 9:31 am
Subject: RE: [Tweeters] Marbled Godwits



Steve, tweets,

The huge flock at Tokeland is a relatively recent development,as I?m quite sure they were scarcely noted there until perhaps the 1980s.Has anyone done a detailed history of the build-up there? These groups furthernorth likely reflect the same trend.

The Willets we?ve come to expect at Tokeland are alsorecent. There were virtually no Washington records of Willets prior to themid-1970s. I made a mad dash over-night to the North River delta to add Willetto my state list in 1976 (having lived here since 1972).

Gene Hunn
Lake Forest Park, WA
enhunn323 at comcast.net


From:tweeters-bounces at mailman2.u.washington.edu[mailto:tweeters-bounces at mailman2.u.washington.edu] On Behalf Of StevenMlodinow
Sent: Thursday, October 07, 2010 6:09 AM
To: Tweeters at u.washington.edu
Subject: [Tweeters] Marbled Godwits


Greetings All



For the last decade, Marbled Godwits have been regular in theDungeness Bay area (adding Port Williams, adjacent to Sequim Bay), into themix.

I remember how shocked I was on 11 (I think I have the numberright) wintered at Port Williams about 13-15 years ago. Over the last 7-10years, they've been found regularly (often wintering, again, from memory) innumbers from a couple to nearly 20.



We had the 13 MAGOs between the 3 Crabs and what was formerlyknown as Oyster Bay (just to the west, now a state park), and though happy tosee them, they were not beyond the realm of what I've come to expect there.



Cheers

Steve Mlodinow