Hi Tweets,

I was on the 7:30am boat to Clinton (Whidbey Island) this morning. While seated inside, I was watching a flock of three Brant on the choppy water with my binoculars and noticed an alcid fly through my field of view. I was able to follow it for only a couple seconds through the window at some distance, as it flew south along the eastern shore about 100m from the boat.

It immediately struck me as a murrelet based on size and body shape but it's long wings and coloration stuck out. It had longer wings than a Marbled Murrelet and it's flight cadence wasn't as hurried, perhaps due to lower wing loading. It was dark above (consisently dark back and upper wing) and light below. I didn't, however, note a "strong" demarkation between white and dark as I would expect for Xantus's/Craveri's, but I didn't have the best viewing conditions. I also was not able to note the underwing coloration to decipher between Xantus's (light underwing) and Craveri's (grayish underwing).

I just wanted to send this sighting out there. It certainly wouldn't be unreasonable to have such a sighting provided the strong winds we had last night. It would be an interesting time to do a seawatch at Richmond Beach, Discovery Park or Three Tree Point.

Cheers,
Adam Sedgley
adams at seattleaudubon.org