Subject: [Tweeters] Where did 1100 Knots go?
Date: May 14 16:55:25 2015
From: Art Wang - artnancy at harbornet.com


Jerry Broadus found 1100 Red Knots yesterday while censusing Bowerman Basin.
I headed to Grays Harbor National Wildlife Refuge this morning before I saw
his post, figuring it would be the right time and tide for Knots. Nope.
After two hours at high tide, I finally glimpsed one Red Knot in flight,
certainly not the huge flock that Jerry saw in the same location and same
tide the day before. Where did they go? My numbers of Western Sandpipers
and Dunlin were also much lower than Jerry's, though we were similar on
Black-bellied Plovers, Greater Yellowlegs, and Whimbrels.



Perhaps a partial answer is that I found about 150 Red Knots and 100
Short-billed Dowitchers at Bottle Beach a few hours past the high tide.
They were a long ways out by then because of the lowering tide and it looked
as if the Knots continued farther to the east into the bay. But it is
amazing that there could be 1100 Knots on Wednesday and only one on Thursday
at Bowerman Basin on the same tide.



While I was looking at the shorebirds at the end of the Sandpiper Trail, a
man who walks there regularly came by and described well seeing 20 American
White Pelicans there late on Tuesday afternoon.



Art Wang

Tacoma, WA