Subject: Brown Booby wild-goose chase
Date: Oct 19 20:23:13 1997
From: Eugene Hunn - hunnhome at accessone.com


Gene Hunn, Seattle, hunnhome at accessone.com

Yes, as Fred noted, we struck-out on the booby watch. Left John Wayne Marina
ca. 9:30 AM and had about three hours to cruise up and down the south shore
of the island. Carefully examined the rock, stump, ledge, piers etc. to no
avail. It could easily still be in the vicinity, however. We found 15 Brown
Pellies at the eastern tip of the island (including three fine adults); well
over 100 Oldsquaws (a.k.a. long-tailed ducks); one Parasitic Jaeger; two
river otters and two black-tailed deer, including one bull with a fine rack;
four adult Bald Eagles on Kanem Spit; lots of Common and Pacific Loons,
Red-necked & Horned Grebes (and a very few Westerns); hundreds
Double-crested and Pelagic Cormorants; two Great Blue Herons; a Northern
Harrier; lots of Heermann's, Mew, California, and Glaucous-winged Gulls and
at least one fine adult Western, and a few Bonaparte's Gulls; Common Terns
near the Marina; lots of Pigeon Guillemots and fair numbers of Rhinoceros
Auklets and Common Murres. Surf & White-winged Scoters, Harlequin Ducks,
1000+ Red-breasted Mergansers just inside Sequim Bay; a stray flock of
Mallards over the island; ... I could go on.

At the horse ponds near the Three-Crabs Restaurant at Dungeness for a
consolation prize, one juvenile Sharp-tailed Sandpiper with 45 Long-billed
Dowitchers, five Pectoral Sandpipers, one Common Snipe ...

At the Clinton ferry dock en route home: three Parasitic Jaegers harassing
Bonaparte's Gulls; one probably Red Phalarope ...

A fine day despite and thanks to George Gerdts for lining up the Scamp.

Gene Hunn.