Hi Tweets and all:
Today a small Rainier Audubon field trip group birded Mud Bay west of Olympia, the Hoquiam Sewer Pond, and then as the rain got very heavy, Ocean Shores. At mid-day, we entered OS, and went straight ahead through the traffic circle. About 4 blocks beyond on Pt Brown Ave, we saw geese and gulls on the golf course to the right. We stopped in back of a church and viewed Greater Wht-fronted Geese, gulls, and a few Black-bellied Plovers at a flooded pond. One of those was in breeding plumage. As we looked at them, we realized that one of the plovers was slightly smaller, had a very obvious supercilium (eyebrow), a smaller bill, and long primaries past the tail. The bird was gray like the Blk-bellies. But then it flew a short distance, and had no black wing-pits. An AMERICAN GOLDEN-PLOVER! Two of the many Greater Wht-fronted Geese were very dark, and very big. Maybe a third again larger than the others. Thanks to Ruth Sullivan, we called those Taiga GWFrt Geese!
Despite heavy rains, and hugely high tides stimying our efforts to see shorebirds, we saw 71 bird spp today including 10 shorebird species. We all agreed that we had never birded in such heavy rains. It was a challenge.
Jeff Cohen had arrived back in town just in time to lead the group. We all thanked him for what turned out to be a pretty good day.
Yours, Carol Schulz