Category: Washington Coast

Usually I post pictures I’ve taken the next day, but with the sunshine and bird migration I’m suffering from a sudden wealth of choices. To make matters worse, I find it nearly impossible to sit inside when the sun is out. So, I’m at least a week behind in posting photos. Today’s photos were actually taken at the beach last Friday.

Since I got up so early I stopped at the wetlands before heading out to the beach. There seemed to be a lot more bugs than birds, but the marsh was bursting with the sound of Marsh Wrens staking their claim:

Since high tide was relatively late in the day, I started birding from the south end of the beach, Tokeland, not from Bottle Beach. I was hoping to see Loons or Western Grebes here, but I ended up only seeing Greater Scaup, at least I could see them out in the middle of the bay with the doubler on my 500mm lens.

I really wasn’t sure what I’d seen until I got home and could put the photos up on the screen.

Surprisingly there wasn’t a Godwit in sight. Instead, there were a lot of small shorebirds that I would normally expect to see on Bottle Beach. I started by photographing the Dunlin:

But as I was watching a Dunlin foraging in the rocks, I saw a strange bird enter far right and quickly changed my focus:

As I sat watching it turn over rocks and shells, I realized it must be a Turnstone, though it wasn’t until I got home and looked in my book that I realized it was the much rarer Ruddy Turnstone.

I stayed longer than I expected at Tokeland taking shots of the Turnstones,

a good thing, too, because the wind picked up considerably as the day went on and very few birds showed up as a result, though the pelicans obliged with an eye-level flyby in Westport.

Thursday just as I was about to accept the fact that it wasn’t going to ever clear up and I ought to leave, it started to clear up and I was able to get shots of the numerous Black-Bellied Plovers,

without their name-sake black bellies because they are in non-breeding colors this time of year. Perhaps that’s why they came so close this time, much closer than I’ve ever managed to get when they were in breeding colors.

I also managed to get several shots of what appeared to be Sanderlings,

a bird I’ve never managed to get a shot of before, though I don’t think this is the first time I’ve ever seen them.

There were also a lot of these small birds, what I think are Western Sandpipers,

though I still find it difficult to differentiate between the many varieties of the sandpiper family particularly when they’re not in breeding colors.

I was pleasantly surprised when a small flock of Marbled Godwits joined the much larger flock of Black-Bellied Plovers.

I’m used to seeing them at Tokeland, but I’ve never seen them at Bottle Beach before.

I suppose I could have been disappointed by standing around in the fog for three hours, but the last half hour of sunshine seemed to completely dispel my earlier frustration.

There were no new sightings and the birds weren’t as colorful as they are during breeding season, but it was a delightful way to spend three and a half hours, alone in the mist as nature closed in around me.