Hi Tweets,

Another late after-work dash to catch sight of some jaegers off the NW side
of Point Grey in the last hour of light. With Karen Irving, in part.

Red-throated Loon 1 jv
Common Loon 4 3a 1jv
Horned Grebe 2 2jv
Red-necked Grebe 9 7a 2jv
Aech. grebe sp. 1
Double-crested Cormorant 18 at least 8 jv
Pelagic Cormorant 3
Great Blue Heron 1
Wood Duck (*weird* locale) 1* m jv,
American Wigeon c60
Black Scoter 3 3m
Surf Scoter c400 apprx 80% ad m
Scoter sp. c200
Common Merganser c60
Killdeer 2
Spotted Sandpiper 1 bsc
Parasitic Jaeger 6**
Jaeger sp. 4**
Bonaparte's Gull c150 2jv, 10 Bsc1, rest ad Bsc
Mew Gull 2
Ring-billed Gull 16 80% ad
California Gull 8 3a 4jv/Bsc1
Glaucous-winged Gull 35
Common Tern c60
Tern sp. c120***
Marbled Murrelet 1****
Northwestern Crow 35
American Robin 12 (many migrants in last week)
Savannah Sparrow 8


*
Initially *way* out on salt water, but came in close to shore.

**
4 light-morph, 1 intermediate, 1 jv; KI and I individually located at some
distance a large, heavy-looking subadult jaeger lacking central spikes or
spoons with a slow, somewhat ponderous wingbeat compared to the known PAJA,
but couldn't decide whether it was a Pom or just an especially robust PAJA.

***
KI asked my help in identifying an odd bird well out on the water and flying
close to the surface; she cited very long thin wings and an erratic,
nighthawk-style of flight. I tied my sudden fantasy of some pelagic petrel
to its leash in the backyard of my mind, told it "stay!" in a very firm tone
of voice, and found the bird she was referring to in a flock of Common
Terns, a Sterna-type tern that conformed to her description. Even at several
hundred meters in what was getting to be so-so light, it was clearly a much
more attenuated bird than its neighbors, thinner- and longer-winged than the
surrounding Common Terns; in addition, I could see that the body plainly
moved vertically with each wingbeat. Likely an Arctic Tern, outside chance
Forster's.

****
This is the first Marbled Murrelet I've seen in Burrard Inlet in nearly two
years, though the species was common here ten years ago.

Oh yeah, the Spottie ended up roosting on a small deadhead about 150 meters
out.

Michael Price If asked "What is Man?" a biologist might
Vancouver BC Canada answer, "Well, 99% a Chimpanzee..."
mprice at mindlink.net -The Economist