[Tweeters] Channel Drive? Tides?

[Jim Betz via Tweeters]

Hello all,

   There's a birding location here in Skagit County known as Channel 
Drive.  It is where a

small slough joins the Swinomish Slough and is about half way between 
the bridges and

La Conner.

   I've been going here a -lot- in the past few weeks.  Sometimes 
birdier than other times

but always 'enough to be interesting'.  Well - that didn't pan out 
yesterday ... I saw just

one GBH and zero shorebirds.  The tide was 'slack' but at a medium level 
(not minus)

but there was some mud flat areas in the sloughs.  I'm guessing that the 
shorebirds

were probably out on the nearby but larger Padilla Bay areas.  I just 
found it "interesting"

and worthy of being reported.


   The state of the tide seems to be much more important than -I- think 
it should be.

There was plenty of 'shallow water' yesterday ... just not so much "mud 
flats" and not as

shallow as in the past 4+ weeks.  However, the shorebirds I've been 
seeing at Channel Drive

(sandpipers, yellowlegs, dowitchers, and even a few phaloropes) do not 
hunt on the actual

mud flats ... just in the shallow water near the exposed mud.

   I checked the tides for the next week or so - pretty 'small' (not any 
minus and not very

high highs).  That, combined with the fact that it is mid-August doesn't 
bode well for my

birding opportunities in the coming weeks. 
*Sigh*.                                 - Jim


P.S. BTW - I made my new camera plus lens decisions.  I'm going with the 
R5-II and the

        RF 200-800.  This zoom is bigger and heavier than I'm 'happy' 
with ... but I expect

        it to solve the primary problem I deal with almost every time I 
go out - how far

        away the birds are from me.  I'm -hoping- I can use it handheld 
... if not I don't

        know if I will get a tripod and gimbal or sell it and see if the 
100-500 will work.