Today Ken and I headed for Jefferson County for a day of county birding there. Both of us had done little birding in Jefferson County since starting to use eBird a few years ago, and so we had fun finding lots of “first” Jefferson eBird species.
We started at Fort Flagler, where having forgotten about DST changes this past weekend, we arrived at the crack of dawn, about 7:20 AM. We began on the beach at the campground and were immediately drawn to a large flock of shorebirds near the sandy spit area. We braced ourselves against the wind and sideways rain and looked over a large flock of Dunlin and Black-bellied Plover, with moderate numbers of Sanderlings intermixed and managed to find a single Western Sandpiper. I saw a Black Turnstone (Ken and I found another 30+ on our return to the spot before leaving) and we both think we had a Snowy Plover, but got just a quick glimpse and could not relocate the bird again after it skittered behind a log. Maybe just a pale, odd looking Sanderling, but it made for some excitement for a while. We left Ft. Flagler with 47 species found in a little over 2 hours. After our eBird tutorial at ABC this week we submitted 4 eBird lists for the stop, not the 1 we would have typically done.
From there we visited several nearby spots picking up some city birds, passerines and a puddle ducks. We lucked into VGSW and then cruised some agricultural fields seeing Trumpeter swans, Tree Swallows, and marsh birds including RWBL, MAWR, and VIRA. Home by 6 PM and great spaghetti by Kay. A good day. WA county #13 for the year under my belt.