Coos Bay - Bandon Port 8.26.12

Who:  Cousin Brandon, Elvira, the shorebird festival group, including super expert guides, myself.

• Black Turnstones
• Eared Grebes
• Barn Swallows
• Double-Crested Cormorants
• Pelagic Cormorants
• Wandering Tattler*
• Peregrine Falcon
• Pigeon Guillemot
• Brown Pelican
• Purple Martins*
• Killdeer
• Belted Kingfisher - female
• Caspian Tern
• Red-Necked Phalaropes
• Ruddy Turnstones*
• Turkey Vulture
• Glaucous-Winged Gull
• House Sparrows
• Mew Gull - juv*
• Canada Geese
• Cooper's Hawk

Wandering Tattler with his Black Turnstone buddies.  (I know, best picture ever! ;))

Purple Martins

Ruddy Turnstone (back) and Black Turnstone (front) both in non-breeding plumage.

Glaucous-Winged Gull (back), Western Gull (middle) and juvenile.

Everyone went running when the Ruddy Turnstone showed up. Several more not pictured.

Near Bandon Port, Bandon Pond:

• American Wigeon - non-breeding plumage
• Snowy Egret
• Great Blue Heron
• Mallards
• Osprey
• American Goldfinch - male
• Spotted Sandpiper
• Pied-Billed Grebe
• Wrentit - by call only.  I looked and looked but never saw it, so I'm not counting it as a lifer.  I know many would, but at least for the first time, I would rather see it.  Maybe if I was one of those super ear birders, like The Big Year character, Greg Miller, then I would count it. :)  

Near Bandon Pond, Bandon Marsh:

• Band-Tailed Pigeons
• Cedar Waxwing
• Black-Belled Plover - breeding plumage - The first time I've seen them like that!
• Short-Billed Dowitchers
• Semipalmated Plovers
• Red Knot* - non-breeding plumage
• Western Sandpipers
• Least Sandpipers
• Northern Harrier
• Greater Yellowlegs
• Red Shouldered Hawk

Lots-O-Peepers.

Black-Belled Plover in breeding plumage.

Next was the Jetty:

• Brewer's Blackbirds
• Brown-Headed Cowbirds
• European Starlings
• Snowy Egret
• Wimbrels*
• Peregrine Falcon

Jetty

Jetty

Camera hog Gull.  

Snowy Egret

Wimbrels

Peregrine Falcon

And Coquille Point:

• Surf Scoters
• Brandt's Cormorants

Last stop: China Creek Beach to see the Snowy Plovers.

• Snowy Plovers*

Best I could get of a Snowy Plover, just happy I got to see them! 

*Lifers-lots!