I was down on the Everett waterfront late this afternoon watching the shorebird show. This week the Maulsby mudflats (on West Marine View Drive north of the 10th street boat launch) has been alive with shorebirds. I've seen 7 species this week with binoculars. Surely scoper's could come up with a few more.

Today I showed up at the mudflats about 5:30pm, just right to catch the incoming tide and shorebirds. This afternoon the species count was down a bit from Wednesday when I saw many Semipalmated Plovers ( I counted 20+ in binocular range, who knows how many more were farther out), and a few Least Sandpipers and Bairds Sandpipers. Today was Killdeers, a few Bairds, and several thousand Western Sandpipers.

The main thing was the spectacle. In the slanting afternoon light, the flats were swarming with peeps, like white ants glowing in the sun. These tiny little birds that travel so far. The barely larger Baird's travels from the Arctic to Southern South America each year- a real migratory superstar lurking out in the peep hoards. The whole migratory thing such an amazing story. A wonderful picture of nature in motion.

Things soon changed. My alert was a flurry of Purple Martin calls. Purple Martins nest here in the Summer and sometimes are easier heard than seen-; their call is quite loud and really carry's. On a blue sky day like today they are often way aloft and hard to see. But this was a real disturbance, and looking way up I saw why- a Peregrine Falcon. The falcon was easier to see than the Martin, but after I spotted it I saw the Martin nearby, giving the Peregrine the what for. What followed was the most sustained Peregrine show I've ever seen. The falcon was several hundred feet up when I spotted it. Turning my back for just a few seconds and looking out to the shorebirds again, I was amazed to see the Falcon zooming by in front of me, zipping after the shorebirds. Soon after a second Falcon showed up (these were both adult birds). For the next 10 minutes or so I watched the two Peregrines in action.

Several years ago atop the nearby bluff at Legion Park overlook, I watched a Peregrine soaring about, wings outspread, when in a second it completely changed form. In an airplane analogy it was like seeing a puttering Cessna morphing into a fighter jet. From it's soaring form it almost instantly " sharpened"- and took off like a rocket. Today I experienced that from below the bluff. One second the falcons were soaring way above, the next they were out in front of me coursing at incredible speed at any bird - duck, tern, gull, shorebird- available. I mean this transformation from soaring to jet speed diving was too fast to follow. After 10 minutes of repeated forays, the falcons moved on. The mudflats were virtually empty of the previously thousands of shorebirds, only gulls, terns and ducks were left.

Purple Martins are brave birds! It takes some gumption to go after a Peregrine, but I saw them do it over and over. Several times the falcons went after the Martins, but missed. In fact the Falcons came up empty of any kind of bird as I watched. Once one of the Falcons, in a short range dive, hit the water hard, but missed whatever it was after.

Jeff Gibson
on the mudflats in
Everett Wa