Greetings all,
After hiking 8 miles of trails at Sunrise, Mt Raininer, while spending time looking at 8 White-tailed Ptarmigan (4 adult males, 2 adult females each with a chick in tow, all at Mount Fremont Lookout), I headed to the coast and Ocean Shores. A quick stop at the Hoquiam STP produced the American Avocet which was sleepily laying down on the western shoreline of the middle pond. I arrived at the Oyehut Game Range at around 4:00PM. I found the juvenile Buff-breasted Sandpiper fairly quickly - feeding along the opposite shoreline from where the trail at Tonquin access meets the water. It was hanging with the Western Sandpipers (which where numbering in the thousands). A group from Portland Audubon was present at this time and they mentioned 4 Stilt Sandpipers were in the area - I ended up seeing 3 of them, all juveniles. Also present were at least 1 Baird's, a few Pectoral Sands, lots and lots of Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs and both Dowitchers. A few Semi-Sands and Semi-Plovers were also scattered throughout and being pushed around by a few pesky Peregrine Falcons.
Cheers,
Ryan ShawTacomartshaw80 at hotmail.com