Subject: small alcid at Westport (fwd)
Date: Sep 16 14:50:31 1996
From: Dennis Paulson - dpaulson at mirrors.ups.edu


>Date: Sun, 15 Sep 1996 12:04:38 -0700 (PDT)
>From: Thomas at wutc.wa.gov (Thomas Schooley)
>Subject: small alcid at Westport
>
>
>I was at Westport yesterday, 14 Sept., where I saw a small dark murrelet
>near the jetty. This bird was similar to a Marbled Murrelet, but it had
>dark scapulars. There was no obvious distinction between the color of the
>head/hind neck and the back, both were a very dark gray. The cheek was
>black with some white showing behind the ear and slightly before the eye.
> The cheek patch was slightly darker than the head and back. The breast,
>neck, and chin were white with a dark smudge extending from in front of the
>wing onto the chest (sorta like the smudge on a Spotted Sandpiper). In
>flight the bird looked uniformly dark above and white below with the smudge
>showing in front of the wing. The wing lining was pale, not a clean white,
>but by no means dark. It flew awkwardly, angled upwards.
>
>Perhaps this was an aberrant juv. Marbled, or an early juv. Ancient, or
>something more exciting. Comments?
>
>Please pass this on to the Tweeters folks, I'm not in the melee now.

Dennis Paulson, Director phone 206-756-3798
Slater Museum of Natural History fax 206-756-3352
University of Puget Sound e-mail dpaulson at ups.edu
Tacoma, WA 98416