Tweeters:

Belated it is, but I thought some of you might be interested in an offshore report from La Push. We were out on the M/V Tatoosh, a NOAA vessel that was surveying the Olympic National Park Marine Sanctuary. We went out about 34 miles at the furthest, covering a parallelogram-shaped beat that was quite productive. Since the Tatoosh is pretty small (32' long if memory serves) and tends to act almost like a cork in the water sometimes, I did not figure that we would have the kind of day that we did.

We lucked out with really smooth conditions--most of the time swells were no more than 1-2' and many times it was glassy. Other than the expected pelagics, we ran into a surprising number of passerines. Report follows.

SEPT 14 ONMC off La Push (number in paratheses=see notes)

Sooty Shearwater 855
Short-tailed Shearwater 3
Pink-footed Shearwater 263
FLESH-FOOTED SHEARWATER 1 (1)
Buller's Shearwater 7
N. Fulmar 468
Black-footed Albatross 61
Fork-tailed Storm-Petrel 2517 (2)
Leach's Storm-Petrel 2 (3)
Red Phalarope 10
Red-necked Phalarope 2
phalarope, sp. 15
Sabine's Gull 13 (4)
Com. Tern 3
Pomarine Jaeger 8
Parasitic Jaeger 1 (dark morph)
S. Polar Skua 20+
Com. Murre hundreds
Cassin's Auklet 2
Rhinocerous Auklet 7

Out-of-habitat (most near San Juan Canyon, 30 miles out)

N. Pintail 1
Am. Wigeon 2
Pacific Golden-Plover 1 (about 30 miles out, attempted on-board landings and also on wake (!) right astern of boat)
Swainson's Thrush 1 (attempted landing at 30-35 miles out)
Am. Pipit 1 (landed aboard, very tame and nearly accepted a food tidbit)
Orange-crowned Warbler 1 (followed boat for some distance)
Savannah Sparrow 2 (seen on journey out, perhaps 12 miles out)
BH Cowbird 1 (Scott Mills only)

NOTES

(1) I did not see the bird as well as Scott Mills. We were passing through a weave of shrimp trawlers, through flocks of N. fulmar and Pink-footed Shearwaters resting on the water, the bird was flushed from within one of those.
(2) Remarkable numbers, hadn't seen anything like it since the Bering Sea. N. Fulmar was also much higher than I expected.
(3) I founf one bird was found dead on the road just arriving into La Push early. Another was on a piling (!) just leaving the harbor, and, spooked by us, jumped off (plop) into the water. Both evidently lost/confused birds that had missed their nearby sea-stack landings during the night.
(4) Other than Sabine's, we had the usual species. However, a very probable SLATY-BACKED GULL was inshore at the mouth of Railto Beach Sept 13. This was a bird just coming into adult plumage (still had a couple of dark feathers from the tail-band), but was very dark-mantled. Very wide white trailing edge to wings, correct head/eye gizz, all other field marks good for SB, thought I had the string of pearls from above but not 100%, did not see anything for primaries from below. I have several low-quality photos to share with anyone, they at least show how dark the bird was as it walked the beach.

NON-AVIAN HIGHLIGHTS OFFSHORE

The flat conditions made for good spotting of cretaceans and other pelagic creatures, including:

Elephant Seal
seal, sp (probably just Harbor but was well offshore at San Juan Canyon)
Alaskan Fur Seal 1-2
Cal. and Steller's Sea-lions (several each)
Dall's porpoise (several)
Humpback Whale 1-2 (including a breaching animal)
Blue Shark 1 (very close off port side, one spotter said 6-7' long)
GREAT WHITE SHARK 1 (?possible, originally Scott called out as AK Fur-Seal but from my perspective atop boat looked like a Great White that had just breached, head pointing away from us, with seal or sea-lion in jaws)

OTHER CLALLAM HIGHLIGHTS

N. Goshawk 9/13 (up Dungeness drainage as previously reported)
Whimbrel 1 each (Dungeness Spit, Graysmarsh public beach 9/15)
Red Knot 2 (Dungeness Spit 9/15)
Baird's Sandpiper 1 (heard only from dock at La Push in southbound flight 9/14)
Horned Lark 1 (Graysmarsh Public beach access 9/15)
Purple Martin 1 (over Graysmarsh 9/15, last of season)
Willow Flycatcher 1 (Graysmarsh edge 9/15, last of season)
8 warbler sp. (48 individuals) including 1 Mac 9/15 Graysmarsh edge

Scott Atkinson
Lake Stevens
mail to: scottratkinson at hotmail.com


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