Another great day out on the ocean!

We left Westport, Washington at 5:30 a.m. this morning, a little earlier than usual. Today's trip was an "outer shelf" trip, meaning we planned to head about 10 miles further west than usual, with Leach's storm-petrel as our target. Leach's outnumber fork-tailed storm-petrels as a breeding species in Washington by about 10:1, but they feed farther offshore so we see them much less often than we see fork-taileds.

The seas were choppy, with salt spray a nuisance at times, but the birds made
up for it! Highlights were 4 south polar skuas (including one that was feeding
on a Cassin's auklet), 2 scrippsi Xantus's murrelets (probably the first June
record for Washington), both storm-petrels feeding at close range on our chum
slick, and a very accomodating laysan albatross. Four tufted puffins, sooty and pink-footed shearwaters, fulmars, 2 arctic terns, red-necked phalaropes and Cassin's auklets rounded out the species list. As for marine mammals, we had a humpbacked whale, a northern fur seal and pacific white-sided dolphins.

Mike Donahue
for Westport Seabirds
Seattle