Greetings all -
Went birding today to coastal Grays Harbor County with Bruce LaBar and Alex Wang.
Our first stop was Brady Loop which we covered from 7:30 to 8:30. Not much shorebird activity yet there but we did pull out ~ 10 Bank Swallows along the western edge of Brady Loop Road.
We then went to the Hoquiam Sewage Treatment Plant where the water level was really too high for any shorebirds to be in the ponds in numbers. We did see a fair amount of peeps on the bay side of the STP on the incoming tide including at least 4 Semipalmated Sandpipers. On the fenceline on the north side of the ponds were at least 6 Bank Swallows mixed in with the other various species. Also of personal interest was 1 Purple Martin which was a first for me in Grays Harbor County, at least since I've kept track via eBird...
We then drove the beach north of Ocean Shores towards the Quinault Beach Casino and checked the shorebird flocks - nothing rare but at least 300 Semipalmated Plovers were noted.
The Point Brown Jetty was next on our list - again nothing surprising but there was an impressive amount of seabird movement with at least 20,000 Sooty Shearwaters meandering the calm waters of the Grays Harbor mouth - and at least 12,000 Common Murres flying northbound (probably a high underestimate!) They just kept coming in flocks of 50-200 for the whole hour we were doing our seawatch. We were a bit surprised we couldn't pull out a Manx Shearwater but the seas were pretty calm keeping many of the shearwaters staying put on the water.
The Oyhut Game Range was our next stop (after a brief stop at the Ocean Shores STP). As we were getting out of the car at the Tonquin Road access, we joked how it would be nice to find a Ruff here. We were probably scanning for 5 minutes as we approached the waters edge before this self-fulfilling prophecy came to be and I called out a Ruff which was foraging on the other side of the "pond" that is present at this game range access.
The bird was pretty far away, and the water level was very high, higher than I have seen it the last few years, but there were many shorebirds on the other side so we braved the high water to walk south along the water's edge until we got to dry land on the south edge of the pond. Walking west from here, I spotted a Horned Lark on the ground; we all took a look at it when another bird came into view with a dark black breast. I immediately knew this was something good and got a fix on it with my scope. A freakin' Chestnut-collared Longspur - male, in breeding plumage, was standing on the ground not 50 yards ahead of us! I had never seen a breeding plumaged CCLO so I was thrilled (and it was a state bird for me as well!!) We watched this little guy for a while, It was feeding out in the open among a few other Horned Larks and i was able to snap a few pictures with my 300mm lens; wishing I had lugged my 500mm out here!
The bird flew a few hundred yards when the Horned Larks took off, calling a few times and we lost track of it so we decided to press on to get closer views of the Ruff.
We didn't have to walk far when we relocated the Ruff in among a flock of 120 Long-billed Dowitchers and 18 Greater Yellowlegs. The bird looks like an adult male molting out of breeding plumage. It was quite approachable and I was able to snap off a few record shots from a distance. Bruce and Alex also picked out an adult Stilt Sandpiper in the the dowitcher flock. A great bird for the coast this time of year! There was also 1 adult female Red-necked Phalarope in the flock and a few hundred Westerns kept flying in and out of the area (along with a few Leasts and Semipalmated Sandpipers).
I relocated the Longspur on the return to the Tonquin game range access. It was on the southeast edge of the pond still in the open area. It was still there when I left. I hope all three goodies, the Ruff, Stilt Sand, and Longspur hang around for others to see.
I have put photos of each on my flickr site. I have embedded them in my eBird checklist - you can click on each picture to access the larger image on my flickr site.
http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S11189944


Cheers and Good Birding,
Ryan ShawTacoma WArtshaw80 at hotmail.comwww.flickr.com/photos/shyalbatross