Sandpipers and Dunlins

I'm about exhausting my shorebird knowledge here, but the birds with the black bellies are the dunlins.  They are a variation of sandpiper, which has the white belly.  Gray's Harbor NWR gets an enormous volume of shorebirds, but not a large variety.  The count peaks in the upper 40,000s, with mainly sandpiper and dunlin and two other similar species. The birds arrive from San Francisco and they each stop over for up to four days and then continue their migration up to Alaska. (This is what I learned from the birders as we waited for the tide to recede.)

Shorebirds

We were all busily viewing and photographing the shorebirds as they returned in small groups to feed in the receding mudflats, when all of a sudden the entire flock sitting on the large log lifted up at once and flew overhead!  All these birds flew right into my shot! If only I had one of the super big wildlife lenses I would have had great resolution on this shot, but unfortunately I had to crop to get this.  I think next year I'll try going back and rent one of the big lenses.  I did that a few years ago, and carried it around like a baby for the weekend (it weighed as much as a baby at just over 10lbs!)  By the end of the weekend I had sore biceps.  One of the photographers told me that she has had her lens for several years and carries it around all the time so she doesn't even notice it.  So in addition to great closeups of wildlife I would also be getting my workout in!

Gray's Harbor NWR

Terrific weather yesterday for my trek to Gray's Harbor National Wildlife Refuge in Hoquiam, Washington.  This is the time of year that shorebirds stop over on their migration up to northern Alaska, and I was curious to see this event.  The park website suggests visiting during a four hour window surrounding high tide, and by the time I drove to the parking lot and then hiked a few miles to the viewing station it was exactly high tide.  The shorebirds eat in the mud flats just above the tide level, so it turns out the high tide is sort of like the eye of the storm.  There wasn't anything going on, just one mass of birds sitting on a large log that is partially visible in the background of the photo.  After about an hour, the tide began to recede and tiny batches of these birds, mostly sandpiper and dunlin, started arriving and feeding along the shoreline.  I was well out of my league here, both in bird identification ability and lens size, but I learned a lot from the birders and wildlife photographers on the viewing platform as we waited for the birds to arrive.