Tweeters,

Today was much nicer than last week, as far as 'having' to spend a day on
the water. Again, I was out on our research fishery at Apple Cove Point,
just north of Kingston, Kitsap County. Kind of tough to have to go
fishing for a living, but someone's got to do it....

At 7:30 - 8:00 a.m., I had a bit of a chance to bird, but for the rest of
the day I only had short periods to scan around the boat. Relatively
quiet today, and there were no Orcas seen today.

A fair amount of bait fish (herring - Clupea harengus) in the water was
providing forage for the terns and Bonaparte's gulls. I saw the jaegers
engage the terns in several bouts of attempted piracy. What's neat is
that the Heerman's gulls were also attempting to kleptoparisitize the
terns and I even watched a *crow* chase an adult tern for several hundred
yards, twisting and turning right behind the tern, trying unsuccessfully
to steal its fish.

~ 80 Surf Scoters
9 White-winged Scoters
1 Greater Scaup
~ 40 Common Terns
~ 25 Bonaparte's Gulls
~ 20 Heerman's Gulls
~ 24 Glaucous-winged Gulls
2 Western Gull adults
~ 10 California Gulls
~ 30 Double-crested Cormorants - flying south
5 Parasitic Jaegers - 3 Adults, 2 Immatures
2 Pacific Loons
1 Red-throated Loon
1 Rhinoceros Auklet
20 Common Crows
2 Great Blue Herons
1 Adult Bald Eagle

1 Harbor Seal

Probably all sort of stuff flew by when I wasn't looking, but I spent an
inordinate amount of time measuring fish and helping our contracted
fisherman straighten out his gear. All in all, beats sitting around
typing on the computer, though :-)

Jon. Anderson
Olympia, WA
anderjda at dfw.wa.gov