Subject: [Tweeters] birding at Long Beach
Date: Aug 1 21:23:41 2011
From: Byers - byers345 at comcast.net


Hi Tweeters,
Bill and I are spending a few days down at Long Beach and environs, our first visit since the 2003 WOS meeting in September of that year. We knew that we wouldn't see as many shore birds visiting in August as we did in September, but were interested to see what we would find. It's true, so far we've only seen one Semi-palmated Plover, one Least Sandpiper, two Black-bellied Plovers, and a small flock of Sanderlings, but the sheer spectacle of what we have seen has made the drive down here worthwhile.
This morning we visited both the North Head and Cape Disappointment Lighthouses. From the North Head Lighthouse we had a bird's eye view of a massive feeding frenzy stretching from the waves below us south to the mouth of the Columbia River. This spectacle included many thousands of birds. Hundreds of Brown Pelicans were plunging into the waves and each pelican was attended by one or two Heerman's Gulls trying to steal whatever the pelican caught. Additionally, there were hundreds of Caspian Terns, thousands of Common Murres, many Pigeon Guillemots, and too-many-to-count Pelagic, Double-crested, and Brandt's Cormorants. There were lots of California Gulls and two Sooty Shearwaters as well. As the tide went out, this feasting moved north in front of us and finally faded out.
We spent a while looking at the cormorants and Pigeon Guillemots nesting on the cliffs at Cape Disappointment, then the wind picked up and made birding less interesting. In the evening we walked out to the beach at Long Beach on an outgoing tide. Here, the sheer number of birds was staggering. There were thousands of pelicans, gulls, and terns resting at the water's edge as far as the eye could see in both directions. These birds were constantly shifting and flying about and perhaps as many birds as sat on the beach were still flying about over the nearby surf, and diving into the ocean. It was really breath-taking and very beautiful in the fading sunlight.
Happy birding, Charlotte Byers