Greetings all,
I was out at Ocean Shores on Saturday mainly to spend the day working on photography. I haven't done as much this past year focusing more on birding than photographing birds. I started out at Damon Point getting out to the tip right at sunrise. There were already a lot of photographers out there all set up photographing the owls. I started early because I was hoping to observe the owls more active before settling down to snooze. They were definitely flying around more finishing their dawn hunting and several were calling which was just fantastic to hear in person! I found a few cooperative owls that allowed me to photograph them from a comfortable distance.

I'm glad Dennis responded so tactfully and eloquently regarding the mis-information being put forth about the birds near the point of starvation and the fact that they do hunt and are active during parts of the day. I was out in the same area 1 month ago and several of the birds I photographed then, I can pick out in my photos from the past weekend. They are obviously doing fairly well; many of them fresh with blood stains on their feet and feathers around their faces. As far as I know, the number of individuals is pretty steady around 10-12 birds (I saw 10) and to my knowledge no one has found a Snowy Owl carcass.

My observations about the photographers (myself included) is that they were generally cognizant of their actions and took care not to flush the birds. Sometimes I observed half a dozen photographing one bird from close range (~75-100 feet), but that bird was also spending most it it's time preening and looking in the other direction away from the photographers. Most of the photographers I talked to were from out of state and were more photographer than birder so I doubt they read tweeters unless for scouting purposes. I did see several birds flushed but by some eager kids who were excited and ran towards the owls when they saw them (Who wouldn't be excited to see the owl from Harry Potter!) and also a few people hiking around the tip of Damon Point who were oblivious to the owls presence, (but appreciated the looks at them afterwards through my binoculars). I flushed one; it flew a few hundred feet when I spooked it as I was walking back to the base of the point and came over a dune ridge in turn surprising it. Its gong to happen but I don't think its the dire situation that it is being made out to be and photographers as a whole don't deserve the pitchfork and torch treatment. I do agree if you see someone over reaching and constantly flushing a bird then something should be said to that person; I'll leave it at that.

I also saw 9 "Streaked" Horned Larks at the end of the point which are always good to see. The female King Eider was in a mixed flock of all 3 Scoters viewed from the base of the washed out Damon Point road near the park entrance. I ran into Charlie Wright, Alex Wang and Annie Meyer and group who had found a Palm Warbler in the RV Park which I failed to relocate.

After Damon Point I took a trek around the Golf Course to see if I could find the Emperor Goose - No luck on my first pass even though I had heard it was seen behind the Cinema in the morning.

I then went out to the Jetty and luckily I hit it at high tide.

I photographed a cooperative group of roosting Rock Pipers:
5 Rock Sandpipers, 22 Black Turnstones and 18 Surfbirds.

There were a few washed up Grebes on the beach, several dead but also 1 beached Clark's Grebe that was looking alert but was not in the mood to move. I heard that some people picked it up later and took it to a rehab location.

I took another spin around the golf course before leaving Ocean Shores and found the Emperor Goose in amongst the goose flock consisting of Taverner's, Minima and 1 Aleutian Cackling Goose, 2 Greater White-fronts and several Dusky Canada Geese. They were on the course accessed from Perch Street between Canal Drive and Octopus.

I spent the rest of the afternoon around Brady Loop and Wenzel Slough without much activity. I also went to Schafer State Park north of Elma with hopes of picking up American Dipper for Grays Harbor County. Little did I know at the time that the park is actually in Mason County. I keep all my bird records on eBird and have never recorded a checklist in Mason County, until now; so I was pleased that my first "official" Mason County bird was an American Dipper singing from underneath the bridge at the park.

If anyone cares to see some photos,

www.flickr.com/photos/shyalbatross


Cheers,

Ryan Shaw
Tacoma
rtshaw80 at hotmail.com