Hello, tweets.

Netta Smith and I made a quick trip to Ocean Shores today, hoping for some numbers of shorebirds. We weren?t disappointed, although all we saw were common species ( a few Black-bellied and lots of Semipalmated Plovers, 3 Greater Yellowlegs, dozens of Western and a few Least Sandpipers and a distant adult dowitcher at the game range and Sanderlings on the beach). Of most interest to me was what we saw in the bay just outside the game range: 24 Red-throated Loons in all plumages, presumably summering birds, as I assume it is too early for them to be migrating down from their breeding grounds. All seemed to have fully developed wings, in other words not still in molt as some are during the summer. I have seen them in the same bay many times during the summer, but usually just one or a few birds; this number was a real surprise. Also present were at least 8 Common Loons, all in breeding plumage and presumably incoming migrants. A few were calling, always nice to hear. A few Common Murres and Surf Scoters made up the rest of the birds we saw on the water there.

More interesting were two longspurs that we flushed from the beach. Didn?t see them until we were close, and then they flushed, called and flew away. A musical call, not the rattling we often hear from Lapland. It seems very early for Lapland Longspurs, but they have to go down as ?longspur sp.?

An immature Peregrine was harassing the birds at the game range, no captures while we watched.

Huge concentrations of seabirds at the mouth of the harbor, mostly gulls (California, Heermann?s, Western and Glaucous-winged) and Common Murres, also small numbers of Pelagic Cormorants. Not a trace of a shearwater did we see, which surprised me.

The upper beach had windrows of thousands of small crustaceans, looked like mole crabs (Emerita analoga) to me but smaller than I?m used to seeing them in Oregon. I wasn?t sure if they were dead or just molted exoskeletons (we saw hundreds of crab molts all along the bay by the game range). I don?t recall seeing such things on the beach there before, but perhaps I just overlooked them. Also, I?ve never seen so many rat footprints at the jetty as we saw today.

It?s always great being at the ocean.
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Dennis Paulson
1724 NE 98 St.
Seattle, WA 98115
206-528-1382
dennispaulson at comcast.net