Ken, Ryan and I had plans to lead an ABC trip to the coast this weekend, but the only date we could get together on was one I couldn’t go on Saturday, so Ken and Ryan led the group down to Ocean Shores on Saturday, and Kay and I joined on Sunday. We met Chazz Hesselein at the I5/512 park and ride at 5:45 and met the group at the old Guest House hotel in Aberdeen at 7:15 to head off to the Westport and Tokeland side of Gray’s Harbor.
The first stop was at Brady’s Oysters, where Ruddy Turnstones were not found. Next at the Tokeland Marina we did get Willets, Brown Pelecans, saw a surprising 12 Purple Martins, and added Heermann’s gull to my 2016 WA list. Juvenile Western Gulls were hiding out on a bouy near the dock, showing off their crisp feathering pattern.

From there a quick stop at Graveyard Spit, and off to North Cove. Lots of gulls, but all we could ID were big guys, CAGU, RBGU and HEGUs.
At the Midway Beach entrance the water was high and no shorebirds were found, though an American Bittern gave many a long fly-by look.
At the Midway Beach State Park campground we walked to the beach and were happy to find 3 Snowy Plovers on the beach near the water, and to see early retuning Sanderling in many various aspects of their prebasic molt, some near full alternate plumage, but most some part of the way thru molt. SPPL were also present in good numbers.


Next stop was Westhaven where the wind was high and the most interesting sighting was of a fellow watching an Common Murre from much to close range.

From there we headed to the Coast Guard Station, seeing lots of BRPE, HEGU, and 7 MAGO but no Barred Godwit or other oddities.
Last stop was going to be Bottle Beach, where we did get nice looks at Ruddy Turnstone, Short-billed Dowichers, and Black-bellied Plovers, but nothing unexpected. We had time left so headed back to the Hoquiam Sewer Ponds which had been the best stop Saturday. There we relocated the Pectoral Sandpiper, but the highlight of the day was a likely juvenile Franklin’s Gull first spotted by Chazz.

On the way home traffic from Olympia to Ft. Lewis was very slow, but overall a great day.