Hi:
There were perhaps 500 each of Western and Least along the east side of the
Bay-Ocean Spit this morning, found one Semipalmated Sandpiper. Best part
were all the birds were close to the road. Maybe 50-50 on adults and HY on
the Least, and all HY birds on the Western.
50 or so Semipalmated Plover in the mix and one Tattler on the rocks at
jetty. No big sandpipers seen.
And I was body slammed by a cowbird. At 7:30 AM, in a rain shower, I saw
a wet, sorry looking bird I was easily able to ID as a cowbird by shape
alone. Back at same spot 4 hours later a nice dry cowbird hopped onto the
path, based on chin pattern alone my brain wondered what a HY Dickcissel
looked like, ignored shape, size etc just looked at the chin pattern and
all that yellow, forgot all about cowbird until I texted photo to
Shawneen. Brought me out of my daze in two words, "young cowbird".
Two rain showers but otherwise a nice bird walk. The very-low-tide ocean
beach was empty except for gulls.
Bob Archer
PDX
