Mid August is here and the juvenile vagrants are starting to show up in Pierce County. Yesterday I got out intending to do the usual Levy Pond, Fife Saddle Creek Oxbow, and 56th St. Stormwater Ponds loop, but got stalled at Levy Pond where I found a Solitary Sandpiper, and wanted to take plenty of time to assure myself of the ID and get photos good enough to convince eBird.

Today I took Kay back to Levy Pond to see the SOLS without success but instead we found a Baird’s Sandpiper, another really good Pierce Co. bird. This was a Pierce lifer for me. I contacted Bruce and he got there just after I left, and he had the Solitary. After success finding the Black Phoebe at the Fife Saddle Creek area Kay and I headed back to spend a while visiting with Bruce and Peter W. but the SOLS seemed to have gone back into hiding.

From there we headed for Brown’s Point to look for alcids, Common Tern, Parasitic Jaeger, and have a sit in the sun, but on our way Bruce called to tell us about a Semi-palmated Plover at Middle Waterway. We pulled a u-turn, headed there and found that FOY Pierce species. Overall a great 2-day, low effort shorebirding time.