Happy New Year all! In case some of you just might be curious, here's a quick
& dirty list summary of seabird sightings during the recent and *very long*
pelagic trip (marine mammal and seabird research) throughout the Eastern
Tropical Pacific (ETP), Jul-Dec1998. Never mind; It's just a job.
Congressionally mandated project to NOAA/NMFS to re-examine dolphin
populations and stocks in this vast tropical region impacted by the commercial
tuna purse seine industry. A huge area bounded by all of Central and
northern South America from San Diego to Peru and west to Hawaii and all over
the place in between; 103 days at sea (not counting port calls). Three ships,
three teams all doing the same thing for the same period of time in various
areas of the enormous ETP study area. This list is just mine and gathered
incidental to the primary mission of searching for and studying cetaceans.
Daily lists were maintained as was a daily computer journal narrative which
for this research period blew up to ~250pp in length thus leaving no time for
a reality check. Did I miss anything important or newsworthy while I was
away? No? Good. Thanks.

To keep this list 'short', I'm omitting in all but a few cases the various
categories and types of unidentified seabirds of which there are a lot. I'd
liked to have listed the species in *correct* taxonomic order, however, I'm
not sure exactly what is correct or currently most accepted. Sorting THAT out
is a science in itself that defies learned convention :-)) Thus, they more-
or-less follow Harrison rather than the AOU, ABA, Monroe/Sibley, or anything
else. No latin names either; that would double the length of this post.
Besides, this isn't science; I'm just doing the birds for fun and it keeps me
distracted from reality for months on end. The 'official' bird score keepers
on each ship conducted systematic 300 meter strip transect surveys which
results in only a fraction albeit representative of the total birds that may
be present during the otherwise ongoing cetacean detection effort focused
beyond 300 meters through 25X150 binoculars securely mounted to the upper
deck.

Top three most widespread, abundant, and trademark species of the ETP:
Juan Fernandez Petrel (62 days, >10K)
Wedge-tailed Shearwater (76 days, >10K)
Sooty Tern (53 days, >10K)

Species listed with number of days seen (out of 103) / (slash) total
individuals in terms of relative abundance shown as:
x=1-9; xx=10-99; xxx=100-999; xxxx=1,000-9,999; xxxxx=10,000+

Waved Albatross -- 5/xx
Tahiti Petrel -- 50/xxxx
Phoenix Petrel -- 12/xxx
Murphy's Petrel -- 6/x
Kermadec Petrel -- 21/xx
Herald Petrel -- 9/xx
Henderson Petrel -- 2/x (recent taxonomic split in the Kermadec complex)
Dark-rumped Petrel -- 11/xxx (Galapagos:7/xxx; Hawaii:4/x)
Juan Fernandez Petrel -- 62/xxxxx
Cook's Petrel -- 18/xxx
Stejneger's Petrel -- 4/x
Pycroft's Petrel -- 7/xx
unid 'cookilaria' -- 24/xx
White-winged Petrel -- 14/xxx
Collared Petrel -- 3/x
Black-winged Petrel -- 15/xx
Bulwer's Petrel -- 14/xx
Parkinson's Petrel -- 11/xx
_Procellaria_ sp. -- 1/x (White-chinned AND Westland I think)
Pink-footed Shearwater -- 25/xxx
Flesh-footed Shearwater -- 2/x
Wedge-tailed Shearwater -- 76/xxxxx (dark:65/xxxxx; light:55/xxxxx)
Buller's Shearwater -- 12/xxx
Sooty Shearwater -- 20/xxx
Christmas Shearwater -- 17/xx
Black-vented Shearwater -- 1/x
Townsend's Shearwater -- 5/xx
Newell's Shearwater -- 9/xx
Audubon's Shearwater -- 16/xxx
Wilson's Storm Petrel -- 3/x
Elliot's Storm Petrel -- 2/x
White-faced Storm Petrel -- 4/xx
White-bellied Storm Petrel -- 2/x
Least Storm Petrel -- 18/xxxx
Wedge-rumped Storm Petrel -- 65/xxxx
Band-rumped Storm Petrel -- 14/xxx
Leach's Storm Petrel -- 81/xxxx (white-rump:79/xxxx; dark-rump:21/xxx)
unid 'w-r' storm petrels -- 50/xxxx
Markham's Storm Petrel -- 16/xxx
Black Storm Petrel -- 22/xxx
Red-billed Tropicbird -- 34/xxx
Red-tailed Tropicbird -- 20/xx
White-tailed Tropicbird -- 4/x
Brown Pelican -- 14/xxx (coastal <10nmi from shore)
Blue-footed Booby -- 8/xxxx
Peruvian Booby -- 1/x
Masked Booby -- 25/xxx (nominant 'yellow-billed' Masked)
Nazca Booby -- 40/xxxx (recent taxonomic split 'orange-billed' Masked)
Red-footed Booby -- 43/xxxx (brown:36/xxxx; white:19/xxxx)
Brown Booby -- 33/xxxx
Magnificent Frigatebird -- 19/xxxx
Great Frigatebird -- 7/xx
unid frigatebirds -- 27/xxx
Red Phalarope -- 32/xxx
Red-necked Phalarope -- 10/xx
South Polar Skua -- 11/xx
Pomarine Jaeger -- 35/xxx
Parasitic Jaeger -- 34/xxx
Long-tailed Jaeger -- 5/xx
unid. jaeger -- 15/xx
Heerman's Gull -- 2/x
Laughing Gull -- 12/xx
Franklin's Gull -- 6/xxxx (spectacular November migration in Peru Current)
Swallow-tailed Gull -- 13/xx
Sabine's Gull -- 9/xx
Black Tern -- 13/xxxx
Common Tern -- 13/xx
Arctic Tern -- 19/xxx
Bridled Tern -- 6/xx
Sooty Tern -- 53/xxxxx
Little (Least) Tern -- 9/xxx
Royal Tern -- 6/xx
Elegant Tern -- 3/x
Brown Noddy -- 8/xxxx
Black Noddy -- 3/xxx
White (Fairy) Tern -- 29/xxx

Migrant land birds that turned up on or around the ship (days/individuals):
Great Egret -- 1/2
Reddish Egret -- 1/1
Cattle Egret -- 6/12
Green Heron* -- 1/1 ('Cletus' -- SEE below)
Cinnamon Teal -- 2/12
Osprey -- 1/1
American Kestrel -- 1/1
Peregrine Falcon -- 2/2
Pacific Golden Plover -- 2/2
American Golden Plover -- 1/6
Snowy Plover -- 1/1
Spotted Sandpiper -- 2/2
Baird's Sandpiper -- 1/5
Common Nighthawk -- 2/2
goatsucker sp -- 1/1 (Short-tailed Nighthawk?!?)....hmm :-||
Swift (_Chaetura_) sp. -- 1/1
Belted Kingfisher -- 1/1
Swainson's Thrush -- 2/6
Barn Swallow -- 10/11
Chestnut-sided Warbler -- 1/1
Black-and-white Warbler -- 1/1
Prothonotary Warbler -- 1/1
Common Yellowthroat -- 1/1
Wilson's Warbler -- 1/1
Summer Tanager -- 1/1
Indigo Bunting -- 1/1
Savannah Sparrow -- 1/1
Baltimore Oriole -- 1/1
unid passerines -- 5/48+

'Cletus' the Green Heron -- There's a story here to tell or publish one day.
In a nutshell, I captured 'Cletus' (don't ask; it just needed a name), a first
year Green Heron when he flew in out of the black of night and landed in my
lap while I was sipping my morning wake-up coffee, feet propped up on the
rail, in the pre-dawn darkness on the aftdeck while we were sailing through
the Islas Revillagigedos (Mexico) between Isla Socorro and San Benedicto on
October 3. For the next 22 days(!) Cletus was cared for and fed (flying fish,
mectophids, tuna, mahi, anything I could scrounge from the deck, dipnetting,
and steal from the galley) and became the ships popular mascot where he lived
balled and chained ...err...um, I mean tethered up on the flying bridge. He
took to the feeding instantly -- no force feeding ever required to get him
started, and it wasn't long before he knew the drill. He could put down a
half-pound or so per day and was clearly filling out and putting on weight.
On October 24, we arrived in Puntarenas, Costa Rica where he was ceremoniously
released and cast to the winds as we were still a mile out from the dock. It
looked like a total success story and I hope it was. Little did I know at the
time of the big release that the soggy ravages of Hurricane/Tropical Storm
'Mitch' were setting upon Costa Rica and all of Central America. It poured
non-stop for 12 straight days!! And you think it has been wet around here?!?
Sheesch! I referred to 'Cletus' as *he*. Hell, I don't know; maybe he was a
*she*. If someone's feelers are hurt now; sorry. Don't bug me about it. All
of our other little 'pet' herons, egrets, and ibises over the years get random
names to fit their personality, not their sex (maybe people should be named
that way). Some day I'll have to tell you about 'Otis' the White Ibis,
another ETP pelagic waif of a decade ago who specialized in human toe cleaning
and foot massage :-))

Richard Rowlett (Pterodroma at aol.com)
47.56N, 122.13W
(Seattle/Bellevue, WA, USA)