On 95-12-21, Dennis Paulson wrote::

>Actually, there are other Leach's records from protected Washington waters
>in winter; this species seems as likely as Fork-tailed to turn up in
>someone's back yard well away from the coast after a storm. Perhaps the
>concentration in the south sound is because they are actually blown up the
>Chehalis River Valley. Alternatively, they could fly toward the south
>after having been blown in the Straits of Juan de Fuca.
>
>

Re: LESP (Leach's storm petrel), FTSP (fork-tailed storm petrel),
REPH (red phalarope), COPE (Cook's petrel)

Yes, I am aware of occasional inside occurrences of LESP scattered thoughout
the year. It was the FTSP that I was only seeing in early December, though in
low numbers and more widespread. I wasn't questioning the sightings. My point
was in just expressing surprise that all the LESP are down there and seem to
be staying there. I mean like, 10-12 seems like quite a few around Tacoma,
but then I've never been to Tacoma (I should be embarrassed to say that),
apart from the SBGU site two years ago and to board one of those giant
SeaLand container ships bound for Yokohama once upon a time. Must be
something luscious in the water keeping them there. I still think that if
there are a bunch in the south-central Sound, then there should be others in
such productive feeding areas like near the entrance to Admiralty Strait.
Perhaps no one has looked and that area and/or similar ones may not be very
accessable for most. Or maybe, as you suggest, they came in overland via the
Chehalis, and just dropped out in the south-central Sound -- certainly not an
unheard of feat for seabirds -- and like birds probably seek out the company
of their own kind.

That big 12/12 wind storm had a southerly bent to it, not westerly, as I had
anticipated (even thought long & hard about NOT chasing it) and the LESP,
REPH, and COPE could have been drawn up from off California and So. Oregon
where it was far more intense anyway. I can easily imagine these tiny balls
of fluff being carried along by 60-100 mph southerlies over great distances.
The storm was quickly running out of steam by the time it got to western
Washington and maybe that's in part why there were fewer casualties on the
outer coast this time. It was bad enough I guess, not to belittle the
inconvenience it caused for some folks in some areas, but not that bad or
seemingly hard on the birds. Storms mainlining over long distances straight
in from the W or NW could be quite interesting to watch, but stong ones like
that seem to be rather rare which is probably fortunate, all things
considered.

I'll be interested to hear what you learn from the COPE specimen; plummage,
age, etc. Cookilaria petrels are a complicated group and I found myself
pulling my hair out sorting through the hundreds, with no two seeming to look
alike, along and south of the the sub-Arctic Front in the north-central
Pacific (~39:N, 170:E) in Aug 1988. I had little useful ID info. to go on,
hence most of the 1600+ seen one day were left unidentified. Just when I
thought I had it all worked out, the next day a whole new assortment would
come along and I had to start all over again. There were Cook's and
Stejneger's for sure, but there were others that suggested Pycroft's and
maybe the recently split Defilippe's, with the vast majority being something
in between. With a few Juan Fernandez (and white-necked) petrels up there, I
suppose all of the above could be possible. A series of specimens from that
area are sorely needed to straighten that mess out. Photos and a bunch of
ego driven 'cookilaria-smart' one-upsmanship birders on a wretched, bouncing,
wet one-day pelagic trip, I really don't think could handle it. ...And that
includes me, hopefully not that I am construed to be any of that! Oh geez;
here come the flames. I have no problem with unid. seabirds. They go with
the territory and I try to learn from them.

A little more seasoned now, I would dearly love to go back into that area and
try again. It is one of the most fascinating, albiet challenging, areas in
all the North Pacific, if not anywhere. And who knows, one by one, they may
all come to Washington one day. The paper you cite: [Cookilaria Petrels in
the Eastern Pacific Ocean, Part II, by Don Roberson & Stephen F. Bailey, Am.
Birds 45: 1067-1081, 1991] is probably the best and most current treatment on
this group as far as I know.

As I will be away now for the rest of the year, I'm out of the *tweeters*
loop for awhile on this and prevously posted subject matter. Besides, I
sense I've gotten an unwanted and unintended reputation as being a blow-hard,
so will give it a rest for awhile. For some reason, I am unable to view
daily digests, so will miss out on further discussions for awhile.
Sigh!...you say. None-the-less, Happy Holidays everyone!!

Richard Rowlett <pagodroma at aol.com>
Bellevue, WA, USA