Greetings all,

Yesterday we continued our streak of good fortune with our Westport Seabirds
Pelagic Trips. No extreme rarities as in our past few trips with the
Greater Shearwater and Horned Puffin, but still overall quite fantastic and
quite birdy.

We left the harbor at 6:30AM with a boat full of excited birders from around
the US, and some from other spots in the world, many taking their first
pelagic trip. They were in luck in that we had 4 leaders on the trip(aside
from usually having 2), Scott Mills, Michael Donahue, Bill Tweit, and
myself.

The weather was great overall. Aside from leaving the harbor with a
rainshower, and one 5 minute burst of rain and hail about 20 miles out, it
was beautiful, and sunny. The ocean was unusually calm, with maybe a 2 foot
swell, if that. Hardly any wind and not even much of a ripple of chop for
the majority of the trip. Hopefully most of the passengers weren't decieved
into thinking this is how it usually always is in the NE Pacific Ocean!

With the water being so calm, it contributed to us getting out into the
"true pelagic" waters quite a bit faster than usual. Though on the way out,
we did see our usual inshore species of Common Murre, Brown Pelicans,
Heermann's Gulls, and surprisingly, only a few Rhioceros Auklets.

After leaving the inshore birds behind, we started seeing the usual first
seabirds. First the Sooty Shearwaters, mostly arcing and streaming
southward. Then we started encountering a good number of Pink-footed
Shearwaters. And in with one group, was one different looking shearwater.
Gleaming white undersides and a brilliant dark M Pattern on the back
contrasting with it gray secondaries and back. Yes we were looking at the
very graceful and elegant Buller's Shearwater, a species that we have not
encounted in their usual numbers this fall. Pomarine Jaegers were streaming
by as we made our way out, with a total of over 80 birds in all stages of
molt, and color morph.

We could see a fishing boat in the distance, and we knew thats where the
birds would be congregating behind, so we made out way towards it. On the
way, we spooked up a large bird from which I could see a large white wing
flash in the primaries. Instinctively I got up and yelled SOUTH POLAR SKUA!
Knowing Skuas usually don't stick around too long, and you never know how
many you will see. Everyone got on the bird before it quickly took off.
Also we started seeing our first Sabine's Gulls of the day, along with
Long-tailed and Parasitic Jaegers as we approached the boat. We had good
numbers of jaegers throughout the day giving everyone on board a good class
in Jaeger identification.

Back to the boat, we creeped up to the boat slowly, observing that there
were hundreds of birds lingering around it, feeding on the by-catch of a few
species of Rockfish, aka Red Snapper. (The boat was fishing for prawns, so
it would through the unnecessary fish back in to the delight of the birds).
Hundreds of Black-footed Albatross were sitting behind the boat, along with
many Pink-footed Shearwaters, California Gulls and Northern Fulmars.
Sabine's Gulls were dancing above them all trying to pick off tiny morsels
from the surface, and Parasitic and Long-tailed Jaegers would then chase
them around trying to disgorge these elegant birds of their catch. A few
Buller's Shearwaters were flying through the group, so the people who missed
the first one were delighted in seeing this make-up bird, real close too.
Also in the flock were a few Flesh-footed Shearwaters, mostly flying away
from us, but we encounted one bird that would sit on the water for a while
and allow close inspection for all to see, and be able to separate from
Pink-footed and Sooty Shearwaters.

All of a sudden the birders fell silent, one of the leaders, Scott Mills,
said "I think I have a Laysan Albatross coming towards us" We all stared in
the direction he was looking, and after a couple of minutes, we could see a
white shape with long black wings flying at us. Sure enough, it was a
Laysan Albatross! It kept getting closer and closer until it landed right
in the middle of the fray, joining the Black-footed Albatross in their feast
of rockfish. This was our first Laysan of the year, surprisingly, and
personally my first one in Washington away from the winter pelagic season.

A few Dall's Porpoise came up to the boat, rooster tailing out of the water,
and proceeded to feed in the area. Also another South Polar Skua, a young
bird came through looking for a smaller bird to plunder.(We ended up with 6
South Polar's for the day).

We went to our chum spot, just a ways from the boat, still in view. So we
knew we wouldn't get any birds away from this "bird vaccum", but we thought
we would put out a slick to at least try to attract some Fork-tailed
Storm-Petrels. And after a while, we did. A few Fork-tails flew into the
cod liver oil slick delighting all on board.

On return to the harbor, we encounted many more California, Heermann's, and
Glaucous-winged/Western Gulls. Also on the jetty were several Black-legged
Kittiwakes, and a couple of Surfbirds, among the usual 3 Cormorant species.

It was a good trip,

I'll post the trip numbers from this trip, along with September 5th, and
today's trip, September 8th once I recieve all the trip's datasheets.

Visit
www.westportseabirds.com for more details on trips from Westport, Washington

----Ryan Shaw
----Lacey, Washington
----rtshaw80 at hotmail.com
----(360) 491-1084
----AIM: RTShaw80



_________________________________________________________________
Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com