Hi Tweets - took a pre-weekend road trip to try our luck at Ocean Shores today; had some good, and some less good. At Nisqually, I found Michael Hobbs but neither of us could find the Swamp Sparrow, at least by the time I gave up around 9 am. We then stopped in Olympia but the tide was too high for much gull action on the mudflats; we checked out all the roof birds but could not find the Franklin's. On to Ocean Shores and Point Brown, our luck got better. From the low tide beach we could see BLACK TURNSTONES and a couple of probable ROCK SANDPIPERS on the north side of the jetty. I walked (rock hopped) most of the way to the end of the jetty and got good confirming looks at the Rock Sandpiper as well as a small number of SURFBIRDS. Many gulls were about, but nothing special noted (one really pale juvenile almost made us want to say Glaucous, however!). In the channel to the south and out to sea, there were few seabirds to be had - just a few Pelagic Cormorants and Surf Scoters. Winds were offshore and not too stiff and the temperature was around 60 - one of the warmest times I've ever had at Point Brown! We stopped at Oyhut - accessing it from the north side and started with a nice Rufous Hummer by the parking lot. On the water were many ducks, a few Greater Yellowlegs, Black-bellied Plovers, and many peeps and other plovers - too far across the water for us to ID. The Hoquiam STP ponds had many ducks but water was high, so no shorebirds. (Looks like they're filling in the eastern pond where the best shorebirds were last fall!) A final evening (low tide) stop back at East Bay in Olympia found many Mew Gulls and a few Glaucous-winged on the beaches but still no Franklin's. But, a generally lucky day to be birding, all in all!!

Jon Houghton
Jon.Houghton at HartCrowser.com<mailto:Jon.Houghton at HartCrowser.com>