[EBB Sightings] Point Emery

Dear Birders:

Thanks to Emilie and Rusty, I visited Point Emery around 9am this
morning. I didn't find the big roost of Surfbirds on the riprap but
found a number of them feeding with Sanderlings and Western(?)
Sandpipers among the rocks and wet mud freshly exposed by the outgoing
tide.  I didn't count them by I would estimate their numbers at twenty
to thirty.  Several larger shorebirds were also feeding -- Whimbrels,
Marbled Godwits and Willets.  Close to shore were a number of both male
and female scaups and with them one male and maybe two female
Canvasbacks.

I walked south along the edge of the Bay Trail to beyond the
sweetly-fragrant yellow lupine before turning back.  In the meantime
the Surfbirds and the Sanderlings had dispersed and the scaups had
moved off further offshore where there were several Western Grebes.

Just north of the point a lone Black-bellied Plover in breeding plumage

bathed in the wavelets lapping the shore. Several White-crowned
Sparrows sang in the baccharus.

The point is a perfect birding spot -- with sun over your shoulder, and
a good strip of compacted decomposed granite along the paved path so
you are safe from the bikers speeding by.  For a closer view (and the
possibility of damp feet), a short wooden stairway takes you down to
the littoral.

Phila Rogers 


       
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