My wife and I made the trip to Ocean Shores yesterday and found the
birding to be much slower than we anticipated. We started at the beach
at Ocean City SP where we found 0 shorebirds, although large numbers of
sooty shearwaters could be seen offshore. Next stop at the jetty, we
found a few Red-necked phalaropes on the bay side, but the true
spectacle was the constant stream of sooty shearwaters passing by. We
hiked out to the game range from Tonquin Avenue around 1230 and found no
shorebirds as far as the eye could see, there was a western tanager in
the parking lot though. Later that afternoon we parked by the water
tower near pt brown and hiked up the beach toward the game range, Red
throated loons were foraging near the shore allowing close looks. We
ended up directly across from the radar station and enjoyed many small
flocks of peeps fly over and around us as they flew in from the bay, but
none landed nearby. Finally a few lesser yellowlegs flew in calling as
they came followed by a flock of peeps which landed where we could see
them. Scanning through them we found 4 Pacific Golden plovers! Heading
back to the car I looked toward the mouth of the bay where I could see
an unbroken stream of sheerwaters extending across the entire distance
from Ocean Shores to Westport.
Mike Blue
Renton, Wa