Subject: [Tweeters] Point No Point
Date: Dec 12 18:36:18 2007
From: Louise Rutter - louise.rutter at eelpi.gotdns.org


I took myself over to Point No Point in Kitsap County this morning, where I
had an appointment booked with an ancient murrelet. I was there from 9.30
till 12.15, and it wasn't a promising start, with small numbers of gulls and
their accompanying alcids way off across the inlet near the cliffs, far out
of ID range. On my side of the water, there were a flock of red-breasted
mergansers, and a couple of red-necked grebes and red-throated loons with
occasional gull fly-bys (glaucous-winged, ring-billed, mew).



As the morning progressed and the tide slackened, the birds moved further
into the middle of the channel. I started seeing small groups of common
murre in flight (with the odd bird in untimely breeding plumage), then a
couple of flocks of 20 or so Bonaparte's gulls passing close in. Murres and
smaller numbers of pigeon guillemots began settling on the water within easy
ID range a little before the high tide of 11.10, and I glimpsed a couple of
rhino auklets briefly, along with a maybe marbled murrelet. A raft of twenty
or so western grebes was also out mid-channel.



I was thinking perhaps the ancient murrelet hadn't got the email about the
appointment, but it was only being fashionably late, with one identifiable
bird showing up at 11.45. Not the best look at an ancient I could have hoped
for, putting it together in the seconds between dives, but enough to confirm
a small alcid with a small beak, a nicely shaped white cheek and its back
greyer than the head. The day also eventually brought me probably my best
study of a rhino auklet, since I could actually stay with the bird on the
slack, windless water, instead of glimpsing micro-seconds of bouncing blob
between the waves. I'm now far more practiced at ID-ing distant common murre
in flight than I was earlier this morning too!



Besides the mergansers, the only ducks around were surf scoter and a single
white-winged in flight.



Louise Rutter

Kirkland