Date: 5/3/26 7:56 am From: Dennis Paulson via Tweeters <tweeters...> Subject: [Tweeters] Grays Harbor and Pacific counties
Netta Smith and I spent Friday and Saturday at the outer coast, with a few real highlights:
The Brandt’s Cormorants are back at their nests at the opening to the Westport Marina, for any who didn’t know about them. Pointblank range for photo ops. And the gulls and pelicans are ridiculously tame on the crabbing dock on the way out to the cormorants.
The beach from the Point Brown jetty north was covered with Sanderlings and Semipalmated Plovers, the most of the latter species I have ever seen in one day. The ocean access at Ocean Shores was alive with their activity, running back and forth and flying up in little flocks as people scared them. We stood still, and they sometimes came very close. There were very few other species present, but we did see a few Dunlins and Short-billed Dowitchers and Marbled Godwits.
Between that access and a prominent Gray Whale carcass to the north was an absolutely gorgeous snow-white first-year Glaucous Gull, can’t miss if it it remains on the beach. It was sad but also interesting to see all the first-year Glaucous-winged Gulls trying to get a piece of whale meat.
Yesterday afternoon as the tide came in, Bottle Beach had fewer birds than I have ever seen there at this time of year, but still fair numbers of birds and most of species were there, including Red Knots. Least and Western Sandpipers were feeding right below us in the channel you cross on the way to the beach, wonderful to see the comparison and to see all the aggression, with sandpipers juiced on hormones chasing and fighting with each other. There were two Long-billed Dowitchers and a Greater Yellowlegs there as well, the first Long-billed I had ever seen at Bottle Beach. They aren’t dowitcher sp out on the beach, they’re all Short-billed.
Tokeland was not so great, never saw anything roosting in the marina, and most birds were at a distance. Perhaps that will change. There was a Red-necked Phalarope feeding right off the end of the dock. This is the time of year to be out there for shorebirds, and good luck!
