[obol] Seaside: Clatsop Co. Update

[David C. Bailey]

See birdnotes.net for complete reports

Friday
30 March 2007
Seaside, Clatsop County

Shawneen Finnigan and Jeff Giligan  spotted a single LONG-SQUAILED
DUCK off the Cove on Wednesday. We are still seeing BLACK SCOTERS too.
The rockpiper numbers have slimmed to a couple dozen with only two
SURFBIRDS (one in fine breeding plumage); the rest BLACK TURNSTONES.
An adult BLACK-LEGGED KITTIWAKE was at the cove during the heavy winds
on Tuesday. I found a breeding plumage BLACK-BELLIED PLOVER on the
beach this week, and heard two calling as they headed north over Ecola
Point last Sunday. Wednesday a single GREATER YELLOWLEGS showed up at
Stanley Lake which also may have been a migrant. It was sporting
breeding plumage.

The GOLDENEYE seem to have disappeared from the Necanicum River and
estuary, but at least 4 CASPIAN TERNS are now staging there and
performing in courting activities involving the presentation of fish
from one to another. The fish look like some sort of rock perch, but I
don't clame to be an icthiologist--they are silvery and rotund in the
belly, and longer than a Caspian tern's bill.

An odd sight and a new one for me away from the ocean was a BRANDT'S
CORMORANT perching on a deadhead log in the middle of the Necanicum a
block upstream from 12th Avenue. We do often see Pelagic and
Double-crested Cormorants on the river, but Brandts is even more
unusual than Pelagic away from the immediate coast I think.
Interestingly, there were two otherwise healthy looking BRANT'S that
washed up dead during the recent high tides a la puffinlets.

Arrivals include a BARN SWALLOW over the Neawanna Mill Ponds
Ecological Observatory main pond early in the week.

The dead from the beaches have pretty much vanished, but the Eagles
are all fat and the coyotes and coons are probably still picking their
teeth with fibulas from the drumsticks.

The Ocean here has been churning to the dismay of many a would be
Spring Break surfer and their are brown algal (diatomacious?) blooms
off Seaside at present.

Oh, and there were a few CACKLING GEESE at the Mill Ponds too; one
with a white neck band that I could have tried to make into an Alutian.

At my feeder I am getting both male and female RUFUS HUMMINGBIRDS.
There was an incursion of DARK-EYED JUNCOS this week when my usual
group of 5 or 6 swelled to a flock of 15+ and included a female
SLATE-COLORED form. Mike Patterson reports a similar incursion at his
Astoria feeder, so it looks like this "resident" species is migrating
up the coast this week. The regularly occuring FOX SPARROW is a no
show this week. The local dialects of BLACK-CAPPED CHICKADEES have
been singing well this week--"dee-dee doo-doo." and "deeeeeee
doo-dee;" the "doo" lower than the "dees."

Finally, last night a first cycle GLAUCOUS GULL was in the Necanicum
at the end of my block off Ave. I.

The White Fronted Goose and shorebird floodgates aught be opening up
in the next week or so.

David

David C. Bailey
Seaside, Oregon



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