Today, we had a wonderful pelagic trip out of Westport. The day began with a brilliant sunrise with Mt. Rainier visible at a distance. Good numbers of Sooty Shearwaters and Common Murres were the most numerous species through the choppy waters heading out. We only encountered small numbers of pelagic birds around the one shrimp boat that we found. However, that provided our first Black-footed Albatross, Northern Fulmars, Pink-footed Shearwaters and a few other pelagics. Our best birding was at our chum site at 36 miles out. After only a few birds within the first half hour, things began to pick up. Our first LAYSAN ALBATROSS of the year gave everyone excellent views as it kept circling the boat. We also had one Leach's Storm-Petrel and many Sabine's Gulls. Our best bird coming back to shore was a MANX SHEARWATER about 4 miles from land. The following are some unofficial numbers of our trip. The totals will be on our website within a few days at www.westportseabirds.com. The leaders today were Ryan Shaw, Michael Donahue and myself.

Black-footed Albatross-87
Laysan Albatross-1
Northern Fulman-32
Pink-footed Shearwater-320
Buller's Shearwater-3
Manx Shearwater-1
Fork-tailed Storm-Petrel-60
Leach's Storm-Petrel-1
Red-necked Phalarope-27
Red Phalarope-8
Pomarine Jaeger-5
Parasitic Jaeger-1
South Polar Skua-4
Sabine's Gull-75
Arctic Tern-3
Common Murre-700
Cassin's Auklet-7
Rhinoceros Auklet-62
Tufted Puffin-1

These are some of the birds I noted for this post. Also 6 Humpback Whales were seen, with one right next to the boat!

Bruce LaBar
Tacoma, WA
blabar at harbornet.com