Sharon and I just returned from a 2 1/2 day trip to Ocean Shores and vicinity and had a great though wet and windy time. A couple of notes may be useful to others who make the trip.

We found the mountain plover Monday afternoon just to the south of the 2nd Ave. beach exit in Ocean City. My wife is in a wheelchair, and the beach was hard enough that we could drive our passenger car along the mid-tide area without worry. She got excellent looks! There were about 10 birders, mostly from Puget Sound, so locating the individual was simple enough. Everyone was properly respectful of the bird's space while we were there.

We visited Brown's Point this morning, or rather I did as the track to the base of the jetty was too soft to chance driving a car on it. I did make the short walk to it. Black turnstones were feeding along the tideline rocks and sand near the road's end. I climbed up the slippery and somewhat hazardous rip-rap to scope the jetty's end for other species and, lo and behold, there was a flock at the west end where the surf was breaking. The boulders were way too unlevel to be a stable perch for a scope's tripod, but I thought they might be surfbirds disappearing like phantoms in the salt spray; way too distant to peruse for other species. It would take a better man than I to hop scotch the few hundred yards atop those boulders with gaping holes between so I took the easy way out and just waited to see what would happen. In a few minutes, the incoming tide flushed the flock and, eureka!, they lit with the near turnstones so the two rock sandpipers could be easily picked out. Waiting was a good choice!

We didn't have any luck with the Damon Point king eider. The only pilings with scoters near were those just to the east of the Point's base, and I couldn't locate the eider among them though I'm used to them in Alaska. Are there other areas where the bird is found?

At Tokeland, willets, least sandpipers, and long-billed dowitchers were feeding along the shore among more common shorebirds. One mid-sized shorebird with a long, decurved bill, really threw a curve and I took a few pics until the individual purposely straightened and curved it's bill several times. It turned out to be a long-billed dowitcher that may have been a whimbrel wannabe!

Bruce Paige
Sequim