Subject: Fork-tails and time of day
Date: Oct 13 07:05:18 1997
From: Mike Patterson - mpatters at orednet.org




I know this is going to sound like sour grapes (though it isn't I've
seen both storm-petrels from land already). I spent over an hour at
SJCR saturday morning and 30 minutes at Seaside Cove, 45 minutes at
Ecola Point and another 15 minutes at SJCR in all on Sunday morning and
failed to see any Fork-tailed Storm-petrels. Yet, FTSP are being seen
from BC to Central Oregon.

So, what time of day and tide are they being seen? Alan Contreras
suggests an el Nino connection which is probably best tested with pelagic
trip data. I last had Fork-tails from the SJCR viewing platform 05/07/95
as I recall there was a high frequency of land observations in that
period, as well and spring of '95 would have been the tail end of an
el Nino year.

Of course, we have to be cautious about blaiming el Nino for all of these
things. Remember, everyone expects el Nino to do something. We're looking
harder than many of us would have in a non-Nino year. And given the number
of el Nino years that have been identified since 1982 (6 in 15) there's
bound to be a bit of stuff that's purely coincidental.




--
********************************* I am but mad north-north-west;
* Mike Patterson, Astoria, OR * when the wind is southerly,
* mpatters at orednet.org * I know a hawk from a handsaw.
http://www.pacifier.com/~mpatters -ws