Subject: Re: 07-26-97 Birding from a tall-masted sailing ship
Sent: 7/29/97 2:32 PM
To: tweeters at u.washington.edu

Dear Maureen,

Thank you very much for your recent posting about your sail around
Protection Island. Sounds like it was a great time, 'cept for those
misbehavin' kids.

I'm the bird sightings editor for Olympic Peninsula Audubon chapter, so
I'd like to include your sightings in our newsletter, Harlequin
Happenings. I have a quick question for you about the birds you saw,
though. You wrote:

>There were large numbers of juvenile Rhinocerous auklets and a fair number
>of juvenile Common murres on the water.

I'm really interested in this, because murres don't nest on Protection
Island or any other local sites. Their closest breeding colony is
Tatoosh Island, near Cape Flattery. Murre chicks should be leaving nest
sites from Tatoosh Island in July or early August, but the chicks at sea
right now would still probably be less than adult size and accompanied by
their fathers. In addition, the Tatoosh Island murres are doing poorly
these days, in large part due to eagle predation, as found by Julia
Parrish and her students from UW, and also probably because of El Nino
conditions this year.

So if you found a "fair number" of juvenile Common Murres this would be
very noteworthy. Did you see chicks accompanied by fathers, or were
these possibly adults starting to molt into non-breeding plumage, making
them look "juvenile?" We get a fair influx of after-first-year murres
into the Strait of Juan de Fuca this time of year, particularly this El
Nino year as murres have been abandoning breeding sites on the outer
coast, especially Oregon. Just wondering.

Similarly, I believe Rhino Auklets mostly fledge in August at Protection
Island, so seeing "large numbers" of juveniles in late July is also
noteworthy.

Again, thank you for your report.

Bob Boekelheide
Sequim