By Kathleen Wolgemuth

An avian star drew birders from around the Northwest the first week of September. A Ruff staked out a path along Damon Point's interior pond, and there it paraded in slow regal fashion for the next week as we admired it from a high point across the water. The excitement began when Seattle's Hal Opperman spotted the Ruff Thursday, September 2. When local birders Bill and Sue Smith arrived, they found a double prize: the Ruff, and beside it, a Buff-breasted Sandpiper.

It was a great week for birding. Jetty area sightings included a Pomarine Jaeger and a Parasitic Jaeger, 7 Surfbirds and 7 Black Turnstones. Beside the Ruff and Buff-breasted Sandpipers, Damon Point's list included 7 Red-necked Phalaropes, I Lapland Longspur, Semipalmated and Upland Sandpipers. As in August, Least Sandpipers by the 100s feasted atop thick high-tide lines of seaweed.

Eastern Washington's Mike Denny knew where to find Black-bellied Turnstones by the thousand - north on the beach from the Marine View approach. It was news to me, and I live here! The sight was extraordinary, a solid mass dozens deep from water's edge up the broad sloping beach to the dunes. Estimated count: 10,000 Black-bellied Plovers, 800 Sanderlings, 500 dowitchers, long- and short-billed. Alone one morning, I watched a woman depositing litter into a plastic bag from the far side of the flocks. Nice. She gestured behind her. A great dog raced up and past, scattering birds and charging in as they resettled.

Another crowd scene was taking place on Cyber Lake, off Highway 112 approaching the city-l00s of yellowlegs visible from the road. In Westport more gathering, this time some 700 Brown Pelicans lined up along the marina side in Westport.

It was a magic week. Steve, a Seattle birder whose last name I didn't get, taught me to distinguish the cry of juvenile Caspian Tern - a sweet sound very different from their parents' Rape-of--the-Sabines shrieks. He explained, too, the difference between the cries of Pacific Golden and American Golden Plovers.

The week of September 12 was good on Damon Point, too. A Parasitic Jaeger swept low past Bob Woodley and me to scatter 100s of gulls and terns. Later, as we picked our way across a grassy highland on' Damon Point, we came across 11 Pacific Golden Plovers, I in fading breeding plumage, the rest in winter plumage. The next day, Bob saw a Parasitic Jaeger harassing 20 Common Terns on the game range.

While I was away in Kentucky (my 1st Prothonotary Warbler), a Sharp-tailed Sandpiper was reported at our game range, by whom I don't know. Local Ginny Thrupp welcomed the re-turn of a Belted Kingfisher atop a canal piling before her house. October 19, my Anna's Hummingbird was back; 20 Long-billed Curlews and 10 Marbled Godwits, golden in the sunlight, were feeding before my house, and tree birds were bathing in the warm water of our two birdbaths.