Monthly census from Pt Brown -> Ocean City - oooww my legs still
hurt !!!!!

2973 sanderling - party time !!!!!!!!!!!
1300 dunlin
15 western sandpipers
3 semi-palmated plover
2 peregrine
2 merlin
1 black-legged kittiwake

small passage south of wigeon, teal and canada goose.

Corpses everywhere:

>From Ocean City State Park -> Pacific Blvd (opposite the golf course)
Distance: 3 miles

109 northern fulmars (c70% blue phase birds)
1 sooty shearwater
3 western grebes
1 black-legged kittiwake
4 glaucous-winged type gulls
6 common murres
4 rhinocerous auklets

3 murrelets of 2 species which I haven't been able to identify
either from Harrison's Seabirds: An identifcation Guide or from the
National Geographic field guide. Both looked like small common
murres in winter plumage the smaller of the two species had blue
feet. Any ideas.

I was walking briskly along the beach about 40m from the base of
the 'dunes' so I defintely missed a large number of birds on the
beach. I noticed large numbers of fulmars on the other 7 miles of
beach I covered though did not count them, so by any account there
has been a large number of fulmars involved.

Whether this is unusual is hard to say.

Stuart
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Stuart MacKay - powered by NeXTSTEP

5200B Ravenna Ave NE
Seattle, WA 98105
ph:(206) 522 1855
email: stuart at blarg.net