Hi Tweeters,

I had some time to look for shorebirds today (8-18-11), and so I headed up to Jensen Access on Fir Island in Skagit Co. ?I could hear Least Sandpipers and Greater Yellowlegs, but the birds were so distant in the outgoing tide that I wasn't able to pick thru the peeps. ?Fortunately, Ryan Merrill showed up when I was fruitlessly looking them over and assuaged my ego by saying they were too far out in the heat waves for him too. ?We were only able to add a Black-bellied Plover here.

We then drove down the road to the Game Range accessed off of Wylie Rd. to see what was around near low tide. ?We hit the jackpot in the second of the 4 consecutive ponds (these are accessed by walking from the parking lot down the gravel path past the first larger pond, and then turning right, and the ponds are all in a row on the left side of this second gravel path). ?Ryan announced that the shorebird that looked unfamiliar to me was a juvenile Hudsonian Godwit, a fun lifer for me! ?Ryan thinks it's the second record for Skagit Co.

Also in this pond were (approx. counts):
- 1 juvenile Wilson's Phalarope (a county lifer for me!)
- 5 Greater Yellowlegs
- 15+ Lesser Yellowlegs
- 1 Long-billed Dowitcher
- 1 Spotted Sandpiper

Peregrine Falcon, Northern Harrier, Cooper's and Red-tailed Hawks all put in an appearance here, and all 3 teal were present too, though it was difficult to tell the Cinnamons from the Blue-winged.

Below are a couple of my digiscoped pics and a video. ?Ryan got what will likely be fantastic shots of the godwit and phalarope, but he's probably not going to be able to post his until next week, his site is: ?http://www.flickr.com/photos/rjm284/ ?

- godwit video: ??http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wi3pO0eJqKk
- godwit photo (with Ryan getting some great pix!): ??http://tinyurl.com/448rlys
- phalarope photo: ?http://tinyurl.com/43yraoo

The Game Range ponds may be best from low tide to incoming tide. ?Hopefully the godwit will stick around for a little while, it appeared to be happily refueling today (it was there when we left about 3:30 pm).

Good birding,
Evan Houston
Seattle, WA