Bob Boekelheide and I spent a couple fun, productive hours from 0930-1130
hrs this morning with our scopes watching the two vagrant Emperor Geese that
are still around "Clines Island", just west of Dungeness Landing near the
river's mouth. A sunny, unwindy, upliftingly calm morning on an incoming
tide, with hundreds of dunlin, black plovers, brant, wigeon, white-winged
scoters, gulls, etc. On one occasion, as we watched the Emperors, a lone
Eurasian Wigeon suddenly appeared alongside them and shortly thereafter a
solitary black oystercatcher as well. These little, far-north geese are very
handsome, and it's easy to see why they occur now and then in private
collections, with their creamy white heads and upper necks beautifully
contrasted with black along the lower throat and breast, and then their
bright orange feet. They look a lot like a brant in structure, but with a
shorter neck and even chubbier body. It was interesting also to be able to
watch them forage along the tidal edges, where as best we could tell from a
distance they were picking up small strings algae apparently. But what's
even more interesting, besides being a new bird for me, is that they're
normally winter along these intertidal habitats in the Aleutian Islands,
where the weather's obviously not often this calm and they forage on mussels
and clams among other things.

Bruce Moorhead
Port Angeles, WA