[Tweeters] Westport Seabirds August 14 Trip Report - Laysan Albatross, Manx Shearwater, Calm Seas.

[Gene Revelas]

Hi Tweets

We had a great day on the water with Westport Seabirds last Sunday, August 14th.  At first, we were very concerned by the dense fog that surrounded us from when we left the dock at 6am to about 8am when skies cleared on the inner shelf.  We enjoyed partly sunny skies and calm seas for the remainder of this beautiful day.  Once out of the fog, we started seeing the bird species typical of the continental shelf, Common Murres, Sooty and a few Short-tailed Shearwaters, our first Pink-Footed Shearwater, good numbers of Fork-tailed Storm-Petrels, and some Red-necked Phalaropes.  Several shrimp trawlers were working the outer shelf and we "joined" them for a nearly hour picking up about 4,000 of the roughly 12,000 total birds we would see by the end of the day.   The species added around the shrimpers included dozens of Black-footed Albatross and Northern Fulmar, the first of two Laysan Albatross for the day, a very cooperative bird that sat nearby for much of the time.   Due to the lack of wind, many of the birds observed offshore were either on the water, on logs, and/or flying just small distances and then setting down again.  This afforded great studies/photo opportunities of several typical flyby or "bump and run" species, such as South Polar Skuas, Pomarine and Long-tailed Jaegers, and Arctic Terns.

Other species added around the shrimpers and then further out into deep water and at our far west chum spot over Grays Canyon included: numbers of Red Phalaropes, one Parasitic Jaeger, many Rhinoceros and a few Cassin's Auklets, Sabine's Gulls, a few Buller's Shearwaters (their numbers will grow into the fall), and one Leach's Storm-Petrel, seen by only a few.  On the return run to the dock, we added one Tufted Puffin, seen by handful of folks on the stern, the second Laysan Albatross, on the water and photographed in flight without leg bands (the first bird was banded providing evidence of two individuals).  Finally, spotters Bruce Labor and Gene Revelas, alone on the bow, had a brief flyby of Manx Shearwater on the inner shelf.

Without fog on the way in, we added the nearshore species we had missed on the way out.  This included: Brown Pelicans, all three Cormorant species, Pigeon Guillemot, Glaucous-winged/Western Gull hybrids (seen offshore too), Heerman's Gulls, California Gulls (seen offshore too), Caspian Tern, several Wandering Tattlers on the Westport Jetty, a Black Turnstone, and the growing flock of about 900 Marbled Godwits in the marina (we had no luck picking out the Bar-tailed Godwit which has been around).   Non-bird animals seen included 10 Humpback Whales, a few Dall's and one Harbor Porpoise, both Steller's and California Sea Lions, a Harbor Seal, several Ocean Sunfish, and 14 Blue Sharks. As always, the Monte Carlo was expertly skippered by Phil Anderson with Ken Luce as the deckhand.  The spotters for this trip were Scott Mills, Bruce Labar, and Gene Revelas. The complete species list can be found on the Westport Seabirds website and eBird.

Happy Birding!

Gene Revelas, on behalf of Westport Seabirds
Olympia, WA


Gene Revelas | Senior Science Advisor
Tel: 360.939.9618 | Cell: 360.870.4950
501 Columbia Street NW, Suite D | Olympia | WA 98501
grevelas at integral-corp.com | www.integral-corp.com

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