Attu report number 3

Jim Elder (jime at eskimo.com)
SEA, Inc.
7030 220th St SW
Mountlake Terrace, WA 98043

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 24 May 1998 16:30:33 PDT
From: Mark O'Brien <mark1137 at hotmail.com>
Subject: Saturday, 16 May Report

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Saturday, 16 May Report

On Friday, the southwest winds were brisk-perhaps 15-20 knots-and they
brought us less than I hoped. The
Greenfinch was still around, but the Dusky Thrush was gone. Some people
who had missed Rustic Bunting picked it up, and a Hawfinch was quite
cooperative at Alexai Point. About the only new bird of interest was a
Common Greenshank that flew over the mouth of the Peaceful River, but we
did not discover where it sat down.

We had no precipitation to speak of, and did see the sun at times. But
this is certainly the windiest and coldest trip that I can remember.
Colder than usual means we don't miss our commercial double
refrigerator, whose use we inherited from the government, but which has
not worked at all this trip. We'll need to send another in on the next
plane. No breakdowns, or other crises, and it appears our news is
getting out to the web site via fax and re-entry. We started up our
laundry, and that's going smoothly.

We awoke on Saturday to a completely overcast day, with light winds from
the southwest. It looked full of promise to me. Nice to have the winds
low for a change.

9 am-our first problem. We discover after lunch that this group of
people must be eating only meat sandwiches, and little of the other
choices. 20 years of experience has given us a lot of data on how much
of various items we need to send. That's important, because plane
payload is not unlimited, and it's expensive to throw away unused food.
Our past consumption of lunch meat has been about 1.1 oz/day/person,
without much deviation. It appears this group is consuming double that.
So even though we brought 25 extra pounds, knowing the second group
would eat it, we will run out of lunch meat as early as Tuesday at
present rates. Tuna salad, chicken salad, ham salad (but not egg
salad!), and hot inside lunches can fill in, and thank goodness we have
lots and lots of peanut butter and jelly.

10 am-it didn't take long to learn that birds have arrived overnight.
The small pond a mile or so from base at the north end of Casco Cove,
where a Whooper Swan has been hanging out, has 31 Wood Sandpipers on it.
That doesn't divert the group headed south and east to Murder Point,
although they do stop a couple of hundred yards from base to look at two
female Rustic Buntings.

10:30 am-A group at Smew Pond (about 4 miles north of base) reports
finding a Common Sandpiper. That sends people heading their way. But not
so quick for those at Murder Point, for they've just found an Eye-browed
Thrush, and it's a little skittery. Now some people aren't sure in which
direction to go first. (The thrush, I say.) In the middle of all this
radio hubbub, the lower building base station radio starts acting up.
Switching spares doesn't fix the problem, but a new, fully charged
deep-cycle marine battery does.

11 or so: a pipit is reported by the Murder Point group-is it a Pechora?
They soon get good looks at it, and determine that it is an Olive-backed
Pipit. They're less than a mile from base, and by the time others
arrive, there are five Olive-backed Pipits in view, as well as a
singing, skylarking Sky Lark.

2:35-A group at Casco Cove has found a Mongolian Plover at the base of
Casco peninsula on the west side. 23 Asian species and counting. (My
previous total of them was inaccurate; Goosanders aren't split from
Common Merganser by anyone. And the White Wagtail may have been a
Black-backed.)

3:20-Guess what's on Casco Beach, not far west of the Mongolian Plover?
3 Temminck's Stints. There are also several flocks of Bramblings around,
with up to 15 birds per flock.

6:00-The magnitude of what has been happing today is now becoming clear.
Our leaders report watching birds on the ground and having flocks of
others land all around them. Of watching flock after flock of Wood
Sandpipers and other birds flying by. Unprecedented numbers of many
species were seen. Veteran Attu leaders have never seen such a widely
spread fall of so many species in one day. Why this is happening, we do
not yet know. The wind picked up a little, to 15-20 late in the day for
a while, but there has been so significant precipitation or any unusual
local weather phenomena. We have even been seeing unusual numbers of
resident species, such as today's totals of 220 Green-winged Teal (Asian
form, of course-previous spring high; 50), 80 Pintails, and 285 Ancient
Murrelets. All record spring totals.

9:30 pm-An absolutely phenomenal, unbelievable, unprecedented day! At
out bird tally this evening, we recorded 65 species, including every
Asian species we've seen to date except Black-backed Wagtail and Dusky
Thrush. We added two more Asian species, Slaty-backed Gull and
Red-throated Pipit. That brings our total to 26, and we are only 6 days
through the 28 scheduled days of our two trips. Hank Norwood's
prediction of 31, and our all-time total of 32 in 1982, are definitely
in danger of being passed.

Here are some of the more interesting sightings for the day, including
Asian species and forms. Previous record daily totals are all in
parentheses. (See table at http://www.attu.com/051698.htm.)

What will tomorrow bring? The winds are now brisk from the west, but
with a slight northerly component. We'll see.

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