I’ve been wanting to check out the birds on the coast, but either my health or the weather had kept us from doing so. I was finally feeling better and the forecast called for sunshine at the beach, so on March 6 we headed to Ocean Shores and the Washington Coast.
As it turned out we couldn’t have chosen a better day weather-wise, but the birds apparently chose to be elsewhere. The only birds we saw on our three-mile walk at Ocean Shores were gulls.
Still, anyone who has lived in Aberdeen any length of time knows how precious sunshine is and would consider it heresy to complain about a sunny day. Besides, we got to visit one of our favorite art shops.
Unfortunately, the birding didn’t get much better at Westport. I was hoping to see loons in breeding colors; we did manage to see several loons, but none of them were in full breeding plumage.
We are more apt to see Pelagic Cormorants at home than at Westport, but I couldn’t not take a shot of this one when he emerged next to the boardwalk.
The most unusual bird of the day was this female White-Winged Scoter.
We also saw several Western Grebes at Westport, but my favorite shot of one was taken a few miles down the road at Tokeland.
It would have been easy to see the day as a huge disappointment, but I preferred to see it as another step to returning to full health — nothing like a long walk in the sand to remind you that you’ve still got a long way to go before you’re back in shape, and, at the same time, help you to begin to build back that strength.