[obol] Seaside update

[David Bailey]

5 October 2006
Seaside area: Clatsop County

Lots of RED-NECKS here, but no stints here.

October has begun and the BROWN PELICAN numbers have dropped to a 
handful. CASPIAN TERNS are gone as far as I can tell.

The Seaside Cove ("The Cove") is still hopping with birds. I counted 500 
HEERMAN'S GULLS there this afternoon. The first MEW AND HERRING GULLS 
have arrived from the North. Steve Warner counted 44 BLACK TURNSTONES at 
The Cove this morning--a high for the season so far. A quartet of 
SURFBIRDS were there yesterday. A pair of WHIMBREL and a single MARBLED 
GODWIT were working the small crescent beach at the cove today. The 
godwit was slurping up mole crabs from just below the wet sand surface. 
A pod of porpoises were working the same bait as the gulls.

The GOLDEN-CROWNED SPARROWS are not really hear in earnest yet. Some are 
trickling through, but I have birded the Circle Creek Preserve twice 
this week and found none in acres and hectares of good scrubby sparrow 
kack.

A minimum of two GREAT EGRET are working the Necanicum and Neawanna 
river in town. One is consistently stabbing fish at Avenue I on the 
Necanicum. My neighbor brought me video of it catching  a dollar bill 
sized shiner perch and downing it today--gulp.

In butterfly news, I saw 6 California tortoiseshells heading ESE off the 
ocean yesterday.

Now is the time to keep working the Chickadee and Kinglet flocks just so 
you can be sure that yes this is still Oregon and not N. California, and 
Confusing Fall Warblers of the east are still rare here.

David C. Bailey
Seaside, Oregon
baileydc at pdx.edu