Killdeer on log at Three Crabs—Photo: Kristy Henderson
Dungeness Bay Field Trip Report—Aug 2, 2026
Report by Bob Boekelheide
The calendar might say summer, but August is shorebird migration season, when we focus on magical flocks of shorebirds returning from their nesting areas around North America. To this end, seventeen OPAS birders gathered at Three Crabs and Dungeness Landing Park on August 2, 2026, searching through the plovers, sandpipers, and other shorebirds that grace our shores this time of year.
Birders at Three Crabs—Photo: Kristy Henderson
We timed our visit to the falling tide, when flocks of shorebirds voraciously gobbled up food on the mudflats by the mouth of the Dungeness River. We watched “probers" like Short-billed Dowitchers and Marbled Godwits digging deep into the mud, as well as “pickers" like Semipalmated and Black-bellied Plovers delicately picking prey from the mud’s surface. The best-dressed award goes to juvenile Western and Least Sandpipers, looking so clean in their brand new feathers, just weeks old. Locally-breeding Killdeer put on a very good show, even triggering an eBird “high-count” alert.
Western Sandpiper juvenile (left) and Least Sandpiper juvenile (right)—Photo: Bob Boekelheide
Not only shorebirds, though. The most abundant species, and even the “Bird of the Day” for several participants, was lovely California Gulls, passing by on their own migration from nesting areas east of the Rocky Mountains. A giant cloud of swallows, martins, and blackbirds panicked into flight when a Cooper’s Hawk zipped by at Three Crabs. Sharp-eyed Gary Bullock spotted two different Bonaparte’s Gulls as well as a Merlin perched above Dungeness Landing, likely dreaming about juvenile sandpipers for lunch. We ended up with 53 species for the day, made up of 12 species of shorebirds and four species of gulls. The day’s bird list can be found in an eBird trip report at https://ebird.org/tripreport/555434.
California Gull—Photo: Bob Boekelheide
We reprise this field trip on August 30, once again pursuing migrant shorebirds at Three Crabs and Dungeness Landing. There’s still room for the trip, so sign up at the OPAS website if you’re interested. Even more exciting—late August and early September is the peak of California Gull migration. How many thousands will we see?