Tweeters,
Guy McWethy and I birded Bottle Beach to Tokeland on Sunday. We started off
fairly early at Midway Beach. The ponds had a few shorebirds including
LEAST SANDPIPER, WESTERN SANDPIPER, DUNLIN, GREATER YELLOWLEGS, WILSON'S
SNIPE and RED-NECKED PHALAROPE, as well as a few BLUE-WINGED TEAL and a
VIRGINIA RAIL. But the exciting part was going out to the actual beach.
There was a huge collection of Gulls and Pelicans on the sand, but just
offshore, easily seen was a huge mass of SOOTY SHEARWATER, generally going
northbound, but many just sitting on the water. We scanned quite a while
for rare shearwaters with no luck, but did pull out a couple PARASITIC
JAEGER. It was hard to leave, as you rarely get to observer birds by the
tens of thousands.

Also along the beach we picked up a WHIMBREL as we worked our way back to
the ponds. However, back at the ponds we had a big suprise as we were
watching peeps when a LONG-TAILED JAEGER flew directly in front of us only
about 50 feet away. Very nice suprise!

Next we hit Bottle Beach an hour before high tide. The shorebirds were
nicely piled up and it only took us a couple minutes to pull out a
BAR-TAILED GODWIT (lifer) from among the Marbleds. A group from Vancouver
Audobon was also on site and pionted out a very gray RED KNOT as well. Also
present were SHORT-BILLED DOWITCHER, BLACK-BELLIED PLOVER and SEMIPALMATED
PLOVER. Then about 15 minutes after arrival all the birds picked up and
headed toward Westport which was convenient since that was our next stop.

At Westport, we walked down the float next to the boatlaunch and Guy spotted
the Godwits immediately. We each picked out the Bar-tailed again fairly
quickly. At one point they flew and Guy was able to see the underwing and
rump detail. However, when they landed, I noticed that the Bar-tailed I had
been looking at had not moved. We checked each others scopes and we each
had a nearly identical Bar-tailed Godwit in two different locations. Both
were smaller than the Mableds, had the longer whitish eyebrow and the
splotches of rufous underneath.

We also checked the breakwater, ready to scan endlessly for rockpipers, but
we didn't have to work too hard as sitting on top of the first row of rocks
past the platform was a WANDERING TATTLER. We also picked up BLACK
TURNSTONE nearby. The jetty didn't have rockpipers, but we did find COMMON
MURRES and PIGEON GUILLEMOT.

Tokeland was next and was as good as ever. Graveyard Spit had 12 WHIMBREL
and 5 LONG-BILLED CURLEW. We checked for odd Terns, but only found CASPIAN
TERN. The marina had about 50 MARBLED GODWITS and a dozen WILLET. Most of
the peeps wandering around were LEAST SANDPIPERS. We also eventually
managed to find about 5 of the local PURPLE MARTINS.

Overall, a great trip with 20 shorebird species, and a lifer Bar-tailed
Godwit and a the Long-tailed Jaeger was a state bird (aka "wafer") for me.
The sun didn't come out much, so the pictures didn't turn out great, but I
still got a few interesting ones including one of the Bar-tails.

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Randy Bjorklund
Federal Way, WA