Hi Tweeters,



Dave and Sherry Hayden and I tried for the Mountain Plover for a couple of hours this morning with no luck.? As noted in the earlier post today, birders were out in force.? Several of us exchanged numbers in case it was spotted, but apparently to no avail.? Still, it was a beautiful day to be out there and we did pick up several nice species.? The highlights include:



Ocean City Beach (sans plover):? 3 PEREGRINE FALCONS, 2 of which appeared to be feeding on tasty SANDERLINGS (lots of them out there today).??One of the Peregrines landed in one of the streams that flow into the ocean there, and we watched it drink and bathe for several minutes.? It looked kind of goofy when it occasionally walked upstream.? This particular Peregrine had a light green band on its left leg and a light blue band on its right.? We also came across a large section of whale skin washed up on the beach.? Serious sushi.



Brown's Pt. Jetty:? Very strong surf with some waves breaking over the jetty.? We spotted a small flock of BLACK TURNSTONES and SURFBIRDS with a couple of ROCK SANDPIPERS in the mix.



Sewage Treatment Ponds:? Several duck species, but nothing unusual.? While scoping the jetty across the bay, we?were able to make out a small number of BROWN PELICANS.



Game Range accessed near the treatment ponds passed the tower:? Probably our best stop of the day.? We saw a small flock of LEAST and WESTERN SANDPIPERS with a couple of DUNLIN.? We also came across our 4th PEREGRINE FALCON of the day.? This one was also feeding on a bird kill.? If you examine the ground near the tower, where it likes to roost, you can find all kinds of bird bits from previous meals.? Out in the bay we found all 3 species of SCOTERS (including 2 BLACK SCOTERS) and the female KING EIDER.? Other species seen included COMMON LOON, WESTERN and HORNED GREBE, and HARLEQUIN DUCK.



Rotted dock near the Interpretive Center:? RED-THROATED LOON.??Also a flock of RED CROSSBILLS passed overhead.? On one of the trees we saw a RUBY-CROWNED KINGLET?flycatching, something?I have never seen before.? Strange year for kinglets.



We couldn't find any Eared Grebes on Duck Lake.



We received a call from John (thank you again!) about the Tufted Duck that Ryan and Charlie had spotted at the Hoquiam Treatment Pond.? We headed down there but dipped on it.? There were only a few Scaup in the pond at this time.? Several SCAUP were out on the ocean, mostly too far to see well and right in the sun's glare, and others were coming and going on one of the smaller ponds that we couldn't access, so it is quite possible that it is still in the area.



We made a final stop at the field by the pulp mill in Hoquiam.? We found a ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK in one of the trees that border the field as well as 80+ GREATER WHITE-FRONTED GEESE and perhaps as many CACKLING GEESE with a few CANADA GEESE as well.



In all, we saw about 75 species for the day.



Good birding,



Lonnie Somer

Olympia

wheelermombi at comcast.net