On Boxing Day, we decided to avoid the crowds at the malls and headed for the beach. Rather than just heading to our usual spot, we decided to check out somewhere new. We ended up at Spinnaker Point in Ocea Shores, WA. We chose this place at random, mostly because it looked to have a nice jetty, which usually make for good wave and bird watching.

And it did! There were both waves and birds.

We had gotten a pretty late start, but still managed a couple hours of bird and wave watching. I took a buch of gull images, hoping to improve my identification of gull types, but even with a good book, and good images, gulls are still impossible to identify. Although I at least know that the ones we saw weren't all the same kind - we found at least two types!

The image below links to a GIF showing a crashing wave that Heather captured!

In addition to the gulls, we also found some small sand piper type birds. They are a little easier to identify than gulls. This flock on the right appears to be a mixture of Surfbirds and Black Turnstones - both new species for us! We also spent a while chasing around a flock of Sanderlings - many images below.

As always, thanks for looking.

Jim

Posted 12/27/2013