Subject: Whidbey Is. Birding Trip - need ID help
Date: Oct 28 14:33:56 2002
From: Franny Drobny - fdrobny at cairncross.com
Hi Tweets:
Yesterday Erica Zwick and I birded Whidbey Island. When on the west beach at Deception Pass State Park, we saw a pair of water birds and we weren't clear on the ID. We had our scope on a flock of 7 Marbled Murrelets, when 2 other "murrelet" type birds appeared in the near vicinity of them. This was not all that far away from us, so we got good looks at them through the scope. They had a similar shape as a Marbled Murrelet, but instead of having black and white colors like them, which are quite distinct, they were dark gray and brown. The head color was a very dark, solid gray/black which ended at the throat/neck line, and then below this demarcation at the throat area, the breast area seemed brownish, with the back very dark brown/black. There was not any white visible on the upper part of the bird above the water line that we could immediately see. The closest thing I can find in the field guide is a Cassin's Auklet, but I thought these are always far out at sea. They didn't have any of the coloring of the summer plumaged Marbled Murrelets, because there was no white or mottling in the throat area. They also didn't appear to be winter plumaged Rhinoceros Auklets. I'm not familiar with the changing plumages of all these birds, so what do you think this was?
Franny Drobny
Seattle, Washington
fdrobny at cairncross.com
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