So that's what I saw! I was on the beach about five miles south
of Westport last Monday afternoon (7/2), and saw the same thing --
thousands and thousands of dark sea birds several hundred yards
offshore. I haven't learned to i.d. pelagics well yet and they were too
far out to focus on clearly, but I couldn't see any white on them. They
were variously sitting and flying, as Dianna said, and moving generally
north in a long drawn-out line. They were actually easy to miss, given
the distance offshore, their dark color, and the fact that they were
flying just above the waves. It was a strange effect, being able to
look out to sea and seemingly just see the shimmering waves, then focus
more and realize that there were thousands of dark birds out there right
in front of me. I'm very glad to learn what they were. There had to be
well over 10,000 of them.
When I saw them on the 2nd it was about 2:00 in the afternoon,
clear and sunny with a brisk wind out of the north.
Dianna, were they moving north or south when you saw them?

Andrea Grad
Alki
agrad at helsell.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Dianna Moore [mailto:dlmoor2 at coastaccess.com]
Sent: Tuesday, July 10, 2001 2:19 PM
To: Tweeters
Subject: Sooty Shearwaters


While participating in our twice-monthly COASST survey in Ocean Shores
yesterday my partner, Kathleen Wolgemuth and I were startled to see what
we
believe were tens of thousands of Sooty Shearwaters about 300 yds
offshore.
They were both flying and sitting on the water, but we could not tell if
they were feeding. I had read in Sibley's book that "millions"
congregate
but never expected to see the numbers we saw. The conditions were
overcast
with wind out of the north/northwest at about 12-15 mph, and the time
was
approximately 6:45pm when we first noticed them. We were able to see
birds
from our position near the Marine View Dr. access path to at least the
north
jetty. I can only scoff at the car commercials that tout the latest
gas-guzzling beast as "awesome". The numbers of birds visible to our
eyes...now THAT was awesome! Does anyone out there know what prompts
this
behavior?
Dianna Moore
Ocean Shores, Wa.
dlmoor2 at coastaccess.com