[Tweeters] Whidbey Island birding

[Louise]

Thank you to everyone who gave me such detailed advice on looking for the
rock sandpipers. Unfortunately, the birds weren't inclined to oblige me,
despite all your best efforts.

The tide was low when I got to the island, so I went to check out Crockett
Lake. It was fairly sparse on the duck front, but there was a short-eared
owl hunting over the grass, a county bird for me. There were a couple of
female harriers there too.

I hopped around between all the spots along Madrona Drive and by the
lagoon. I found a bunch of turnstones and a couple of surfbirds from a
viewpoint on Penn Cove Rd, but I wasn't able to magic up any rock
sandpipers - another lady I met reported the same. There were some black
oystercatchers on that beach too. The lagoon had only yellowlegs all
afternoon, along with an assortment of ducks, crows, gulls, a couple of
bald eagles and a great blue heron. The lady I met birding said she met a
man who said he'd seen a rock sandpiper at Mueller Beach around 2.30pm, but
I never saw a shorebird there - lots of goldeneys of both species though.

It was a lovely afternoon to be out on the island, but rock sandpipers make
a point of being the bane of my birding life!

Louise Rutter
Kirkland
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman11.u.washington.edu/pipermail/tweeters/attachments/20240312/b5c9fc45/attachment.html>