A Sunny Day at the Beach

I was skeptical when I read the forecast for Ocean Shores, but I wasn’t going to miss the chance to spend a sunny day on the coast.  As it turned out, it was one of those rare days when not even fog could ruin a sunny morning.  There was a price to pay, though, because it was the strong Northwest winds that blew all the fog away.

It wasn’t quite frigid, but it was cold enough that we didn’t spend too much time looking at the waves break over the jetty

though this Bald Eagle seemed content to brave the winds and surf.

I wondered if the eagle was scaring away other birds because we didn’t see anything else except  gulls until we started to walk back to the car.  Just then I spotted these little guys in the rocks, and I realized I didn’t know what they were.  They looked a little like Turnstones, but I didn’t think they were.  It wasn’t until I got home, put them on the screen, and got out Birds of the Puget Sound Region that I realized that they were the Surfbird that I had sought for years.  

They were so close that it was impossible to take a shot where some of the birds weren’t out of focus.  If I had realized that they were Surfbirds, I would have spent more time trying to get a good profile shot, but this is best shot I managed.


As it turned out, birding wasn’t too good all day, either because the birds were trying to avoid the high wind or because birds are staying away because of the unusually cold weather we are having.

I also originally mis-identified the next-best bird of the day.  I originally thought the Red-Necked Grebe in the upper right of this photo was a Horned Grebe because it was so much smaller than the Western Grebes it was hanging out with.   

It was only later, when it got quite a bit closer, that I realized from its profile that it wasn’t a Horned Grebe.

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