Subject: Marine bird alongshore movements on Outer Coast (fwd)
Date: Jul 2 10:59:51 2002
From: Bruce Moorhead - bruceb at olypen.com


You might pass the following info. along to your friend and see if he can
refine his observation of a large bird movement along the outer coast a bit
more. The birds he saw were marine birds and were probably shearwaters or
storm-petrels. But the flight characteristics of each may be more accurate
than size in trying to pin down which kind of bird it most likely was.

Sooty Shearwaters are abundant offshore migrants here about now and can
appear close to shore in sizable movements like this. They're about 18" long
with a 40" wingspan and are somewhat bigger than a crow (which is about 16"
long, with a 34" wingspan). Storm-petrels also nest on islands along our
outer coast now and are also known to make large alongshore movement like
this. They're smaller than a jay, about 8-9 inches long with a 18" wingspan
(Steller's Jays are 11" long with a 19" wingspan).

Shearwaters in alongshore movements like this fly with a more rapid,
stiff-winged flapping pattern. Storm-petrels, in addition to being smaller,
fly with a more erratically buoyant, zig-zagging, and pumping sort of flight
pattern. Think of starling and butterfly flight behaviors.

I once saw a similarly "endless movement" of storm-petrels about 100 yds
offshore from late afternoon to dusk near Kalaloch, along the outer Olympic
National Park coast, about 30 miles north of Pacific Beach, . Leach's
(darker in color) and Fork-tailed Storm-petrels (lighter) both occur here.

Bruce Moorhead
Port Angeles, WA
bruceb at olypen.com

----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Dossett" <phainopepla at yahoo.com>
To: <ipaulsen at krl.org>; <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Sent: Monday, July 01, 2002 9:15 PM
Subject: Re: Bird Sighting on the Coast (fwd)


> Sooty Shearwaters?
>
> Michael Dossett
> Bothell, WA
> Phainopepla at yahoo.com
>
> --- ian paulsen <ipaulsen at krl.org> wrote:
> > HI:
> > Any ideas??
> >
> > Ian Paulsen
> > Bainbridge Island, WA, USA
> > ipaulsen at krl.org
> > A.K.A.: "Birdbooker"
> > "Rallidae all the way"
> >
> > ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> > Date: Mon, 1 Jul 2002 11:42:46 -0700
> > From: JOAN CARSON <jpcarson at earthlink.net>
> > To: Ian Paulsen <ipaulsen at linknet.kitsap.lib.wa.us>
> > Subject: Bird Sighting on the Coast
> >
> > Hi Ian,
> > Would you do me a favor and put something out to
> > your birding buddies on the web?
> > A friend of mine reported an interesting sighting on
> > the 26th of June and I would like some guesses as to
> > what the birds were.
> > They were staying at Pacific Beach on the coast and
> > at 5 pm that evening noticed a mass migration of
> > birds about 100 yards offshore that were moving
> > north. Lew said he tried to count them but that was
> > a huge task. They kept passing by for more than 2
> > hours. He estimated almost a million birds.
> > Size-wise he said they were smaller than crows but
> > larger than jays. So, there you have it. Would love
> > to hear what others think these might be.
> > Joan Carson
> >
>
>
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