[obol] The Cove this evening and Tillamook Head this morning

[David Bailey]

13 Sept. 2006 Clatsop Co.

This evening there were at least 10,000 SOOTY SHEARWATERS (up form Mike 
P.'s 1000 earlier in the day) at The Cove in Seaside. Most of them were 
on the water and could be seen, if squinting, by naked eye. Steve Warner 
and I scanned the flocks which stretched at least as far north as Sunset 
Beach from 17:00 to 17:30 for a light-bellied anything. Steve did spot a 
FORK-TAILED STORM PETREL and a RED-NECKED PHALAROPE. We also saw about 
75 GREEN-WINGED TEAL moving about with the shearwaters. It was nice to 
see the shearwaters so close, such that I could scope in relative ease 
with my low-end scope.

This morning I walked up Tillamook Head Loop Rd. off Rippet Road off hwy 
101 just south of Seaside and did the loop with Eva in the backpack. 
This is Weyerhaeuser land and therefore trees are somewhat to very 
sparse. The views are nice and there is a lot of edge habitat. You get 
up to the microwave towers that can be seen at the back end of Tillamook 
head from anywhere in Seaside to the hwy 26 interchange. I was hoping 
for migrants, but got a late start. I did find my first RUBY-CROWNED 
KINGLET and several SWAINSON'S THRUSHES. The later were calling very low 
volume, but using both the whip call and the Wheyyee call. They are so 
secretive when during the day this time of year. I found a few 
BLACK-THROATED GRAY and TOWNSEND'S WARBLERS and a singing HUTTON'S VIREO 
down by the gate on my way back down.

Last Friday (8 Sept.) I found a CASSIN'S VIREO just north of here at the 
Circle Creek property. This was a county bird for me. They are quite 
scarce in Clatsop and along the North Coast in general. Yesterday (12 
Sept) in the late afternoon at Circle Creek I found TOWNSEND'S, BLACK-T. 
G., WILSON'S, YELLOW, and ORANGE-CROWNED WARBLERS and WARBLING VIREO.

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

Mike Patterson wrote:
> As part of a comprehensive census that I am doing for Ft Clatsop
> I did a 10 minute seawatch from Sunset Beach.  At about 8 minutes
> in, I started seeing SOOTY SHEARWATERS flying just past the breakers.
> With them was a single, smallish, light-bellied shearwater which
> I did not see long enough to ID to species.
>
> There were several 1000 SOOTY SHEARWATERS at Seaside Cove and
> 2 PECTORAL SANDPIPERS at the Necanicum...
>
>