Some notes from my quick trip to the coast this morning. ?
First stop around 8:30 was the Hoquiam STP. ?Two SB Dowitchers and a single Pectoral Sandpiper. ?Water in ponds was very high with little mud. ?Various ducks but very few gulls and no Kittiwakes.
Next I went to Float 21 at Westport. ?With some diligence I found and photographed the Bar Tailed Godwit in the flock of 300+ Marbled Godwits. I checked the groins for Rockpipers and found none.
I hurried over to Bottle Beach to be there 3 hours before high tide which was scheduled for about 2:00 p.m. ?When I got there there was plenty of mud and hundreds of shorebirds far out. Included were a single Semipalmated Plover and Two Golden Plovers among the 150+ Black Bellied Plovers. ?I could ID one as Pacific but not sure of the other. ?There were also several hundred peeps. ?Approximately two or three times as many Westerns compared to Least. ?There were also some Sanderlings but not a single Dowitcher, Knot, Whimbrel or Godwit. ?I had expected the flock from Westport to come but they never did.?
A Peregrine strafed the mud and 90 percent of the peeps and ?all of the plovers flew west and did not ?return. The tide came in very quickly (it was a high tide) and essentially all birds were gone by noon except some gulls. ?There had ?been 150 plus mostly Ringed Bills. ?I was going to drive the beach south of Westport. ?I went out at Bonge Road, but the tide was in so much that there was little sand.
I made another stop at the Hoquiam STP. ?There were hundreds of gulls...Ringed Bills and California. ?The dowitchers and pectoral were gone but a small flock (+/- 75) were in the mud at the north side of the Easternmost pond. ?Lots of ducks.
I was really struck by how quickly the mud at Bottle Beach disappeared. ?I think it is going to be a relatively high tide again Friday, so keep that in mind if you visit.
Blair Bernson