Tweeters:

Anne Winskie and I enjoyed a good day between Fir Island and Samish today, detecting about 85 species. At the turnoff for Jensen, a juv. YELLOW-HEADED BLACKBIRD was in a large blackbird flock. At Green Point (Washington Park) BONAPARTE'S GULLS finally made a showing, with 64 birds counted. Following them was the day's highlight, a light-morph ad. POMARINE JAEGER off the south end of Cypress Island, followed by the appearance of two more jaegers, a light-morph PARASITIC and a dark-morph JAEGER, sp. POMARINE has been reported just twice previously in the county as far as my records show. Also at Green Pt. were two arrival OLDSQUAW (LONG-TAILED DUCKS) and a SANDERLING. Two arrival first-winter HERRING GULLS came through as well. Another LT DUCK was seen off March Point later. Later Anne and I had great luck at a small flooded field just east of the W-90 at Samish Flats. We had a late juv. BAIRD'S SANDPIPER on arrival, in a DUNLIN flock. But another shorebird eclipsed this one for rarity, and made a nice study here. Unfortunately, despite very close proximity, obtaining a decent photo took much longer than expected, but I just left these on flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/14115261 at N05/ Steve Giles pulled up after awhile and also obtained looks at this shorebird. By my notes, Skagit County has had 13-14 entries for SHARP-TAILED SANDPIPER over the years, I believe more than any other mainland Puget Sound county. Scott AtkinsonLake Stevensmail to: scottratkinson at hotmail.com