I just came back from the Maulsby Mudflats here on the Everett waterfront where the Whimbrel that Ann Marie Wood posted about on 6/10 are still there. I saw 20 yesterday morning. This morning at 9am, with a similar low tide, I saw about ten ( limited viewing as I only use binoculars). High tide today is at 1 pm, and the next low at 6pm, so if one were to time it right you might get some closer looks. Bpth times I've seen them, they are sticking to the "higher ground", such as it is, of the mudflats.

In my mind I associate Whimbrel with my first looks of the creature at Mukkaw Bay (on the ocean coast just south of Cape Flattery) back in the earliest 70's - my high school years. My excellent teacher Alice Romero would take a bunch of us West Seattle High School kids out there on Memorial Day weekend to explore the Mukkaw reef as part of her Marine Biology class - one of the premier tidepool spots on the whole west coast. Really.

Anyway, Whimbrel were present there each year, in small numbers, usually way up on the strand line, in dryish sand near the dune grasses.
These were the first I'd seen as a young self-taught ( with much help from public libraries) naturalist, and I was delighted at their large size, and major beakage. What a great bird!

As I very rarely get out to the Pacific coast, it's very nice that Whimbrel have included our humble Everett mudflats on their flight plan.

Also saw 3 Purple Martins out around the furthest nestboxes - not too far from the Whimbrels. And of course the usual Eagles, and more Osprey than you can shake a stick at. A few hundred Caspian Terns for background music.

Jeff Gibson
watching mud in
Everett Wa