October on Dungeness Bay: When the Sandpipers Leave and the Winter Birds Move In

People call Dungeness Bay a winter bird refuge, but the counts point later. Brant and Dunlin, the two birds the bay is best known for, reach their highest local numbers between February and April. October is the opening act. If you live off Jamestown Road, this month is the time to work out where to stand and which tide to watch, while the flocks are still building.

Here's how the season usually builds, using the Olympic Peninsula Audubon Society's own counts.

The long-distance travelers have mostly gone

Late summer on the bay belongs to birds passing through. On an August 30, 2026 field trip, OPAS counted thousands of California Gulls around Dungeness Bay, along with 356 Black-bellied Plovers at Dungeness Landing Park and a juvenile Baird's Sandpiper at the mouth of Meadowbrook Creek. That Baird's Sandpiper nests on the high Arctic tundra and spends the winter mostly between the Andes and Tierra del Fuego. The group logged an even 50 species between Three Crabs and Dungeness Landing, and trip leader Bob Boekelheide wrote that migration runs "full tilt through September and October."

The Purple Martins have gone too. The final 2026 OPAS census counted 19 breeding pairs in 18 nest boxes over the Three Crabs tide flats. The last chicks fledge in early September, and the martins won't be back until April.

OPAS describes the Western and Least Sandpipers, so abundant in August and September, as "mostly fled south" by October and November.

The winter birds arrive slowly and peak late

Here's how the main species usually move through the year, pulled from OPAS and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Treat these as long-term patterns. None of them are counts from this fall.

The Dunlin are worth a closer look. They can't leave their coastal Alaska breeding grounds until they finish their annual molt, so their fall migration starts late, just as the snow starts there. OPAS's data suggest that many southbound Dunlin pass Dungeness Bay without stopping, or stop so briefly they're hard to count, and keep going to California. On the way back north, the bay gets two or three times as many as it did in fall. Brant follow a similar pattern. OPAS's Three Crabs survey series recorded its highest monthly brant counts from February through April, with the birds feeding along the shore at Three Crabs and Jamestown.

So the good winter birding on this stretch of shoreline actually lasts into spring. In October the cast is still being assembled.

Some arrivals have been running late. OPAS's swan study recorded the first foraging swans in the lower valley on November 26 last season, behind the usual late-October or early-November arrival. The midwinter average was 61 swans, the lowest since the surveys began in 2014.

What decides whether the brant stay

Brant come to Dungeness Bay for eelgrass, and right now that eelgrass has a fight on its hands.

In May the Sequim Gazette reported on Jamestown's Refuge Management Program and Dungeness Nature Alliance volunteers. They started trapping invasive European green crabs on Dungeness Spit about a month earlier than usual this year. Trappers pulled 315 green crabs in the first two weeks of the 2026 season, compared with 1,668 for all of 2025. "(Starting early was) getting in front of that invasion; we knew had to extend our trap season," said Fawn Wagner, Wildlife Refuge manager for the Dungeness and Protection Island National Refuges.

Wagner explained that eelgrass is already declining across the Salish Sea. It feeds the forage fish that salmon eat, and it's essential food for the brant that winter here. Green crabs were first found on the Spit in 2017, and there's no known way to keep them out of Salish Sea waters. Trapping is the best tool available. More than 40 Dungeness Nature Alliance volunteers set traps and record data from late spring into early fall. In 2025 they put in more than 800 hours. When you see brant feeding off Three Crabs this winter, part of the reason they're there is the trapping work done on the Spit last summer.

Where to stand, close to Jamestown Road

These spots run roughly from east to west along the inner bay.

1. Three Crabs, WDFW lot. The old restaurant was removed in a restoration that the North Olympic Salmon Coalition lists as completed in 2016. The project also took out fill and shoreline armoring and rerouted Three Crabs Road, which let more tide flow through Meadowbrook Creek. You'll need a Discover Pass, or the Vehicle Access Pass that comes with an eligible hunting or fishing license. A sani-can is on site seasonally. Public use is limited to the WDFW trail and beach, because the tidelands to the east and west are private.
2. Dungeness Landing County Park. Take Marine Drive to Oyster House Road. The park covers 5.6 acres plus 13 acres of tideland and has a covered birding platform, benches, picnic tables and a flush toilet. This is where the 356 plovers stood in August.
3. Cline Spit County Park. About half a mile west of the Landing off Marine Drive, with a boat ramp, a vault toilet and 240 feet of public tidelands. The County asks visitors to respect the private property beyond the fence and signs.
4. Dungeness Refuge Main Trail. This is the farthest of the four. From October through April the Dungeness Recreation Area gates are open 7 a.m. to 9 p.m., and Refuge visitors park in the northern USFWS lot. Refuge hours run from sunrise to half an hour before sunset. Entry is $3 per group of up to four adults, and children under 16 get in free. The Dungeness River Nature Center's guide notes plenty of Dunlin, Sanderling and Black-bellied Plover inside the Spit in fall and winter.

Time it to the tide

On its August 2 trip, OPAS planned the Three Crabs and Dungeness Landing stops around a falling tide, when shorebirds were feeding on the newly exposed mudflats.

Getting that tide becomes harder as the season goes on. OPAS points out that by the mid-December Christmas Bird Count, high tides fill the daylight hours and the lowest tides come in the middle of the night. Boekelheide has seen a few thousand barely visible Dunlin roosting on logs in the closed area of Graveyard Spit, where counters can't find them unless they already know where to look. Falling-tide mornings are easier to catch in October than they will be by Christmas.

If you're driving to Three Crabs, the low stretch of road near Meadowbrook Bridge regularly floods when king tides arrive with low-pressure weather. In July, Clallam County was moving ahead with an engineering study of that stretch. On a big-tide day, check the road before you load the scope.

On the calendar this fall

• October 7, 6 to 7:30 p.m. Lyanda Lynn Haupt discusses Among the Birds: Field Notes from Cascadia in Rainshadow Hall at the Dungeness River Nature Center. The talk is free, hosted by Port Book and News and OPAS, and an RSVP is recommended.
• October 10. Free entry at Sequim Bay State Park for the Washington State Parks free day.
• October 17. Free OPAS field trip to Port Williams and Gibson Spit, looking for loons, alcids, waterfowl and gulls. Registration is required.
• October 21. Free OPAS program on the design of the Olympic Coast Exploration Center, including bird-friendly glass and lighting.
• Wednesday mornings. Free River Center bird walks at Railroad Bridge Park, scheduled through May 5, 2027. Listings give different start times, so confirm with the center before you go.
• November 21–22. The River Center's Nature Mart, with handmade gifts, wreaths and baked goods.
• April 15–18, 2027. Olympic BirdFest, with Dungeness Bay and the Spit among its field-trip sites. Registration opens in January.

For a sense of what the bay holds by midwinter, the December 15, 2025 Sequim-Dungeness Christmas Bird Count logged 146 species, above its recent 30-year average. Its 52,408 individual birds came in below that average, and American Wigeon led with 9,830.

The bay you see from Three Crabs in October is still filling up, and it'll hold more birds in February than it does now. If you live near Jamestown and are weighing how close you'd like to be to the tide flats, whether that means walking distance to Dungeness Landing or a view of the brant from the deck, Trisha J Cobb and Shawnna Rigg know this shoreline and are happy to talk it through. Let's Connect.