Hello Tweets,
On Saturday my wife and I went on a boat trip organized by San Juan Audubon. The boat was the Orca Express run by Eclipse Charters. We went counter clockwise around Lopez Island starting at the Orcas ferry terminal. The west side of the Island gave us great looks at Marbled Murrelets, Harlequin Ducks, and the three species of cormorants. As we went through Cattle Pass at the SW side of the island we saw about 40 Steller's Sea Lions. The males which can reach 2000 lbs were hauled up on Whales Rocks which are just east of the lighthouse at Cattle Pass. Very impressive animals. As we continued east from there, we came across a rock with 28 Black Oystercatchers. You usually don't think of a flock of oystercatchers. This was the largest number any of us had seen together. Rosaio Strait on the east side of Lopez had good numbers of Common Murres, Pigeon Guillemots and Bonaparte's Gulls. As we headed north we came across a bay that had 2000-2500 Surf and White-winged Scoters. !
The ski
pper cut his engines so we could hear the whirl of the scoter's wings as they took of from the water. As we cruised by Trump Island on the NE side of Lopez, one of Seattle Audubon's Birdwatch teen birders, Kelly, picked out a Peregrine Falcon up on the cliff on a small tree. Everyone went port side to take a look at that bird. The boat dropped most of the passengers off at Orcas and then ran the rest of us over to Friday Harbor. On the way over, we had a Parasitic Jaeger wheel up in front of us then flew along side the boat for a while. The skipper really enjoyed it because it was his first good look at this species. We had super weather along with good people which made for a very enjoyable trip.

Neil Zimmerman
Brier, WA
n3zims at comcast.net