Subject: [Tweeters] Large Numbers of Ancient Murrelets in the San Juan's
Date: Dec 31 18:42:43 2006
From: Rick Taylor - taylorrl at mindspring.com


Tweeters,



Tina and I made our first ever winter visit to San Juan Island today. What
a quiet, peaceful place without the crowds. We saw an amazing number of
ANCIENT MURRELETS. We saw 2 flocks on the 7:45am ferry ride, three more
flocks from Lime Kiln Point SP, and at least 20 flocks on the 1:40pm return
ferry. Nearly all of the flocks were in the 5 to 10 bird range. I have
never seen so many ANMU before. Is this normal for this time of year in the
San Juan's? The other interesting thing was the number of breeding plumage
COMMON MURRE. There were large numbers of PACIFIC LOON and COMMON MURRE off
Lime Kiln Point. About 15% of the COMU were in breeding plumage. Alas, no
Thick-Bills in the lot.



Happy New Year!



Rick



Rick & Tina Taylor

Everett, WA 98208