Jane on the National Wildlife Refuge board-walk at Grays Harbour this morning

We woke up this morning and it was raining – as I write this blog this evening, it’s still raining. This is the first whole day of rain we’ve had in over eight weeks of birding and the steady down-pour has significantly restricted our activities. As a consequence, for only the second day of GABRAT, we’ve failed to add a new bird to the trip list 😦 We did visit the near-by Hoquiam water treatment ponds a couple of times, the excellent (in better weather) Grays Harbour National Wildlife Refuge and, this afternoon, the agricultural areas around the Brady Loop Road. Don’t get me wrong, we’ve seen some nice birds, but we’ve got pretty wet doing so and our optics have remained covered up for a lot of the day.

Most interesting bird of the day was this bedraggled summer plumage Western Sandpiper

Runner-up was this colour-ringed Raven – any help from American banders, on the origins / history of this bird, would be much appreciated. Seen at Hoquiam water treatment plant