An update on some of the birds found in our area for the Grays Harbor Christmas Count held on Dec. 30. Our area included the Ocean Shores jetty, the game range and Damon Point. Our party included Charlie Wright, Annie Meyer and Laurel Parshall. At the jetty in the morning we saw 15 Black Turnstones, 45 Surfbirds and 16 Rock Sandpipers. Other highlights were 1 Fork-tailed Storm-Petrel flying out of the bay towards the ocean ( the first bird that Charlie and Annie saw when getting out of the car to start our day!!), 4 Black-legged Kittiwakes and no alcids! The game range was pretty quiet with only a Western Meadowlark and 2 Peregrine Falcons as a good sightings. We started our trek out to Damon Point by first checking the large scoter flock that was towards the game range inside the rocky partial jetty. The King Eider was among all three species of scoter. On the walk out the point we heard one Snow Bunting fly over and had 3 Horned Larks. Obviously, the highlight of the point were the Snowy Owls! We were able to carefully scan and walk around several observers without disturbing them. We took careful notes on where each was seen and if the flew where they landed. We counted several times and came up with 12 on the point and 1 on a sand island offshore a long ways a way. Quite a treat to see so many! The only other highlight from here was 1 Rhinoceros Auklet which was the only one for the count. Our misses included the Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, which we tried for several times, the same for Palm Warbler and towards the end of the day trying to poach the Emperor Goose at the golf course. Fortunately it was seen by others in the morning.
The one highlight that caught my attention from other counters was an Iceland Gull seen by the Westport crew. Several birders are trying to refind the gull today, so stay tuned.
May the New Year bring you all your bird desires or a least some!
Bruce LaBar
Tacoma, WA
blabar at harbornet.com