Wow. This was last Thursday 9/10. Come to think of it, one surf scoter seemed dead (upright, but unmoving). And of the ones lunging for the ocean, some seemed to be awkward/ungainly but I thought they don't walk well because their legs are so far back on their bodies... didn't occur to me they could be sick or even dying. I thought there might be black-winged scoters too, but I'm not good enough at bird identification to feel confident about that. I did see one dead murrelet (or is it murre?) in the same area that day.


Thanks Scott for sharing the link to the story: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/outdoors/2009860574_seabirds14m.html

Rebecca Laszlo
Seattle WA