Billy Frank Jr. Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge
Olympia, WA
The trails give excellent birdwatching vantages of the refuge’s sloughs, dikes, wetland pools, and extensive mud and tidal flats. When the tide is out, take to the boardwalk traversing glistening mud and salt flats.
Kennedy Creek Natural Area Preserve
Olympia, WA
This is a great “pit-stop” on your loop journey. The access from Hwy 101 is easy, and ADA accessible.
Twanoh State Park
Hood Canal, WA
The more than a half mile of beach on Hood Canal is where the good birdwatching is at.
Potlatch State Park
Hood Canal, WA
The adjacent Skokomish River delta consists of estuary, riparian forests and extensive wetlands and a heron rookery.
Fort Flagler Historical State Park
Marrowstone Island, WA
Owing to its location and surrounded by water on three sides, the park is a great spot for watching marine birds.
Dungeness Spit National Wildlife Refuge
Sequim, WA
The eelgrass beds in Dungeness Bay host some of the state’s largest concentrations of wintering harlequin ducks, scaups, black brants, black-bellied plovers and dunlins.
Salt Creek County Park
Port Angeles, WA
When the tide is low, take to a series of staircases leading to beaches, and rocky shelves for better viewing.
Clallam Bay Spit Park
Clallam Bay, WA
Mile long sandy spit with beach walking, views of Vancouver Island, and excellent birdwatching. The river attracting a wide array of birds and mammals.
Ruby Beach
Pacific Coast, WA
From a bluff top trailhead, hike through a salt-sprayed maritime forest for .2 mile to the beach set before contorted sea stacks and Abbey Island just offshore.
Damon Point
Grays Harbor, WA
Damon Point is on what was once Protection Island. But through accretion the point is now on a 1.5 mile long spit.
Grays Harbor National Wildlife Refuge
Grays Harbor, WA
The basin is inundated with hundreds of thousands of shorebirds from late April to early May.