I spent 3 hrs birding the spit.
the first hr was completely unremarkable...which sucks, because it was cold out!
the 2nd half, though, was quite fun. spotted two owls. thought the 1st was the barred owl and initially thought it was a pair of mating owls, since they were flying around with each other. saw the 2nd owl later and it was a GHO. the 2 owls didn't look unfriendly towards each other, so perhaps both were GHOs, which was neat, since i thought there was now only 1 GHO at the spit. a caveat: the Spit's GHO doesn't like people. never has. so if you're going to try to see it or get good pictures? forget it. i'll also note that the GHO was deep into barred owl territory, so I wouldn't be surprised if the barred owl is gone either by choice or by being eaten.
no NSWO, but there is one there. it usually hides extremely well. again, not likely worth the time/effort to go out to try to find it. more often than not, you'll come up empty.
after seeing the GHO, i saw about 20-30 white-winged crossbills. that was cool. swore that there were a redpoll or 2 mixed in there. also swore that there was a black bird or 2 mixed in. the lighting was incredibly dull, so it made IDing birds very difficult. i'll have to look through my photos to see what I saw. but there was a nice mix of male, female and juvenile crossbills.
a couple said they got great views of a pintail near shore. i was too tired and cold to go and look.
