Subject: Re: Tatoosh Island trip
Date: Oct 15 07:45:40 1998
From: Christopher Hill - cehill at u.washington.edu


Hi Ruth,

Thanks for the added feedback. It seems from what you and Scott have said
that Palm Warblers are in the category of, say, Harris's Sparrow - present
every year in small numbers, but still quite scarce. Is that a fair
assessment? I was rather amazed to see that Gene Hunn listed only one
record for King County as of the publication of his book. So either (1)
Palm Warblers have become commoner in the last 20 years, or (2) King
County is out of the normal area of occurrence. All the records I've seen
mentioned (other than Gene Hunn's) have been on the outer coast, which
suggests the latter explanation to be true. And you can't get much more
"outer coast" than Tatoosh, unless you're on a boat. I know that Tatoosh
has a pretty good record as a trap for vagrant waifs.


Chris

Christopher E. Hill
Department of Zoology
University of Washington
P. O. Box 351800
Seattle, WA 98195-1800


On Wed, 14 Oct 1998, Ruth Sullivan wrote:

> Hi Chrisopher,
> I usual don't respond, But like to tell you,lot's of birders think the
> Palm Warbler is rare in Washington. Not so, there been many sightings of
> this birds. Russell Rogers should respond to this, he is keeping records
> of bird's sightings. I remember back, when Patrick and i had three Palm
> Warblers in Ocean Shores way back . I can look the date up, because i took
> close up photos of this species. It's the area close to the Marina and the
> Nature Shop.We had some other sightings at Palmer Avenue, the road goes of
> Marine View Drive.It's always a good sighting to see the Palm Warbler
> Ruth Sullivan
>
> ----------
> > From: Christopher Hill <cehill at u.washington.edu>
> > To: Tweeters at u.washington.edu
> > Subject: Tatoosh Island trip
> > Date: Wednesday, October 14, 1998 1:45 PM
> >
> >
> > I'm not getting Tweeters right now, so if you respond, please cc me.
> >
> > I was lucky enough to get to go to Tatoosh Island last week. Tatoosh is
> > the northwesternmost tip of the contiguous U.S., off Cape Flattery on the
> > Olympic Peninsula. It's owned by the Makah tribe, and I was along to
> help
> > some fellow graduate students do research on intertidal ecology there.
> > But when the tide was in, I was free to do what I wanted, which was
> mostly
> > birding.
> >
> > Highlights for me were the oceanic birds coming by offshore, the marine
> > mammals (especially Steller's sea lions and my first wild sea otter), and
> > frankly, just being out there watching the waves break on the rocks.
> > Beaths the hell out of being stuck in a lab, an office, or even Discovery
> > Park.
> >
> > Though I spent hours looking through gulls, I was surprised both by what
> > was there and what *wasn't* there. No Mew Gulls at all, although we
> > started seeing them immediately when we got back to Neah Bay.
> >
> > Numbers by each species below are the highest total seen at one time, NOT
> > an estimate of the total number seen.
> >
> > 100s of Shearwaters and loons were passing by in a steady stream
> offshore,
> > traveling east to west (out of the Straight of Juan de Fuca, and into the
> > Pacific). In five minutes of counting:
> > 22 shearwaters,
> > 19 loons (>90% Pacific),
> > 11 alcid sp. (including several species).
> >
> > The List:
> >
> > 10 Pacific Loon
> > 2 Red-throated Loon
> > Loon sp.
> > 1 Red-necked Grebe
> > 7 Sooty/Short-tailed Shearwater (those I could see clearly seemed to
> > be Sooties)
> > 38 Brown Pelican
> > 12 Brandt's Cormorant
> > 15 Pelagic Cormorant
> > 1 Great Blue Heron
> > 55 Canada Goose
> > 1 Scaup sp., prob Greater
> > 8 White-winged Scoter
> > 24 Surf Scoter
> > 11 Harlequin Duck
> > 18 Black Oystercatcher
> > 1 Wandering Tattler
> > 3 Heerman's Gull
> > 300 California Gull
> > 8 Western Gull
> > 100 Glaucous-winged Gull
> > 3 Black-legged Kittiwake
> > Gull sp. (prob. saw 1 Herring Gull; there were a few WG/GWG
> > intergrades)
> > 2 Common Murre
> > 5 Pigeon Guillemot
> > 1 Cassin's Auklet (flying by; small, small-headed alcid, all dark
> > above with dark breast, white belly)
> > Alcid sp.
> > 2 Bald Eagle (both adult)
> > 1 Merlin (female)
> > 1 Peregrine Falcon (one male, one female on island)
> > 1 Short-eared Owl
> > 2 Belted Kingfisher
> > 20 Crow
> > 2 Winter Wren
> > 1 Am. Robin
> > 40 Starling
> > 2 Yellow-rumped Warbler
> > 3 Palm Warbler
> > 1 Spotted Towhee
> > 2 Savannah Sparrow
> > 4 Song Sparrow
> > 1 Lincoln's Sparrow
> > 2 Golden-crowned Sparrow
> > 3 Fox Sparrow
> > 18 Lapland Longspur
> >
> > Christopher E. Hill
> > Department of Zoology
> > University of Washington
> > P. O. Box 351800
> > Seattle, WA 98195-1800
> > cehill at u.washington.edu
>