On Sept. 5, Les Carlson, George Mayfield, Barry Woodruff and I birded Grays Harbor County hoping for the large numbers of shorebirds reported lately. We started out at the Hoquiam Sewage Lagoons where John Gatchet and Hans de Grys already had the RUFF in his scope when we arrived. The only other shorebird of note there was a SOLITARY SANDPIPER, so we headed for a foggy and cool check of the Oyehut Game Range in Ocean Shores. The tides were not high enough to move many of the birds onto the range but we did manage to pick out over a dozen species here. We did have a bird that may have been a Sharp-tailed Sandpiper but it was dispersed very shortly after being spotted by one of the very active PEREGRINE FALCONS that kept the flocks in motion. At about 5:30 PM a group of larger shorebirds flew in and set down, most of the birds were GREATER and LESSER YELLOWLEGS but one very buffy colored bird intermediate in size between the two yellowlegs species stood out. We maneuvered as close as possible and scoped the bird until it too was flushed by the falcons, we concluded that it was a juvenile male RUFF.

Wilson Cady