Dear Tweeters,

Today (11 Sept 2010) was a good day to see birds of Order Charadriiformes in Skagit County. Notable birds today included these:

Semipalmated Plover, one or two at the West Ninety;

Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs: close to a hundred, if their numbers were combined, at the Game Range;

Dowitchers: easily 150 of them at the Game Range, with smaller flocks elsewhere. I was able to find only a couple of Short-billed Dowitchers among all the LBDO.

Sharp-tailed Sandpiper: one at the Game Range, exactly where it was last Sunday, in the fourth (last) of the new ponds along the new dike;

Pectoral Sandpiper: small flocks here and there on Samish Flats and Fir Island;

Baird's Sandpiper: seven or eight foraging with Leasts, along the dike at the West Ninety;

Franklin's Gull: one juvenile off Rosario Head, remaining there at least a half an hour in early afternoon;

Heermann's Gull: about eight at Rosario Head;

Common Tern: three at Samish Island Public Beach, one off Jensen Access;

Parasitic Jaeger, one off Jensen Access.

Also notable was a beautiful male Yellow-headed Blackbird along Downey Road and an adult Green Heron (and very little else) at Channel Drive.

In the brush at Samish Island Public Beach was an interesting trio of migrant passerines: a Fox Sparrow, a Swainson's Thrush, and a Hermit Thrush.

It was a very good day, but the tantalizing thing for me was, I think I ended up with 98 species--and no flicker, no coot, no Accipiter, no Peregrine, no vireo, and very few warblers or flycatchers. That's birding for you.

By the way, birders headed to the Samish Flats tomorrow should be advised--there is a marathon taking place Sunday morning. I reckon that it will take much of the day, since the slower runners might take who knows how long to do the 26-odd miles. At the speed I was walking today, it would have taken me about a week, what with so many birds to look at!

Yours truly,

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