Hello tweets,

Highlight for the ferry ride from Edmonds was a total of 75 BRANT in small,
scattered flocks across the straight, with one flock of 21 flying high above
the horizon.

My morning at Point No Point started off well-enough with fly-bys of at
least five MARBLED MURRLETS and three ANCIENT MURRELETS within minutes of
setting up my scope. A pair of the former gave me fantastic views close to
shore - too bad my photographer friend wasn't with me! After another 30-45
minutes I had seen numerous COMMON MURRES, four PIGEON GUILLEMOTS and one
floating RHINOCEROS AUKLET. BRANDT'S CORMORANTS were by far the most
numerous of the cormorants. HEERMANN'S and MEW GULLS were the most common
larids with distant BONAPARTE'S and one fly-over HERRING GULL.

After scanning Puget Sound for about 45 minutes, I spotted a dynamic soarer
about 400-500m straight across the channel. I followed it for about three
minutes at about 50x magnification (Swarovski 62mm HD) where it came as
close as 300-350m. It proceeded north around mid-channel.

I was immediately struck by a gray back, wings and top-of-head with a
distinct ?M? in very dark gray / black that started on the base of each
wing, continued straight to the elbow of each wing then began to fade as it
extended to the wingtip. This pattern immediately brought ?Buller?s
Shearwater? to mind so I watched the bird with great intent. As I studied
the bird, I noted the following:

- *Head *was clearly dark above and white below but there was no sharp
demarcation between the two. The coloration of the gray cap was consistent
with the neck, back and wings.
- *Wings *on the dorsal surface were gray with a distinct darker ?M?. The
wings on the ventral surface were white with a distinct black stripe
extending from the center of the base of the wing to the elbow. The stripe
then followed the leading edge of the wing nearly to the tip.
- *Back* was gray, as noted previously, consistent with cap and wing
coloration.
- *Breast *was pale, nearing white and the belly appeared slightly darker
but this wasn?t as apparent to me as the sparkling white vent.
- *Size *struck me as small. Considering the zoom on my scope, I did not
want to get off of it to ID anything that it was flying past for size
reference. It struck me as about the size of a Mew Gull.
- *Flight behavior *was rocking and low to water with little to no flaps
noted. Periodically did high arcs about 10 feet off the water which allowed
great views of mostly its dorsal surface.

I stayed for another hour scanning to see if it would come back, but it did
not.

Interestingly, Dennis Duffy reported seeing a bird at about 9am from
Edmonds, heading north: *"It flew low over the water, and then it did the
arc thing about every 20 seconds. Gray bird, "M" on the back. Black bars on
white underwings. About the size of a Mew Gull. Head looked mostly white.
gray back of the same description."*

To learn more about this species in Washington click here:
http://birdweb.org/birdweb/bird_details.aspx?id=18

My first tubenose in Puget Sound! :)

--
Adam Sedgley
S e a t t l e, WA
sedge.thrasher [at] gmail [dot] com
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