Tweeters,
Before heading home from a long weekend at the coast I decided to stop by Midway Beach one more time. Given the stormy weather I figured there just might be a change from the birds Ryan Shaw encountered a few days previous. There were definitely birds on the move today. When I first arrived about 1130 there were only a few birds about. By 1230 numbers and variety had changed significantly. The best birds were a juvenile American Golden Plover and 4 Baird's Sandpipers. A second Golden Plover (also presumably a juvy) had to go unidentified. The rest of the shorebird list was as follows: Killdeer (4); Semipalmated Plover (6); Whimbrel (115); Western Sandpiper (13); Least Sandpiper (3); Baird's Sandpiper (4); Dunlin (1 very worn adult); Long-billed Dowitcher (4); Dowitcher sp (50 presumably mostly Short-billed); Wilsons Snipe (3); and Red-necked Phalarope (4). I did not check other locations, so who knows what might be about.
Cheers and good birding...
Bill Shelmerdine, Olympia
Mailto: georn1 at hotmail.com