Well it's a few days late in the media, but both KOMO and KING/KONG had a blurb about the immature blue-footed booby on tonight. They all said that birders were flocking up to Skagit County to see the bird. Aren't any tweeters going to see the booby? I figured it had disappeared since I didn't see any comments on tweeters. State wildlife biologists say you can see the bird between Anacortes and San Juan Island. Anyone have a boat or organizing a boat trip? Please let me know if you are.

Valerie Elliott
Olympia, WA
VElliott at msn.com
----- Original Message -----
From: Ryan Merrill
To: Tweeters at u.washington.edu
Sent: Sunday, August 06, 2006 10:50 PM
Subject: [Tweeters] Blue-footed Booby on Samish Island - August 6, 2006


This afternoon on Samish Island in Skagit County I watched a BLUE-FOOTED BOOBY flying in circles with a few hundred gulls for about 40 minutes near the park on Wharf Road. About 3:40 it flew south/southwest over Padilla Bay toward March
Point before I lost it in the haze. The gull flock it was with appeared to have relocated in that direction and was flocking between Guemes and Saddlebag Islands. I would guess that the booby joined the gulls there again and could certainly remain with that flock. Hopefully it can be relocated in the upcoming days. The one previous Washington record was near Everett in September 1935.

The few pictures I got are online. There is a red mark on the belly that I'm not sure what to make of. It appears that it could be red paint.

http://www2.bc.edu/~merrillr/BFBO/bfbo.htm

Earlier in the day I flushed an adult Black-crowned Night-Heron at the Skagit Game Range and saw a Semipalmated Sandpiper from Channel Drive.

Good luck!

Ryan Merrill
Kirkland, WA



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