Birders,



Seeing that the weather looked good on Sunday, I decided to make a run down
to Green Point at Washington Park, Anacortes, to see if I could find some
ANCIENT MURRELETS or other interesting alcids (maybe a HORNED PUFFIN?). I
spent more than an hour at the point (about 3:00 to 4:30 PM), along with Don
Aupperly from Lynden (sorry if I misspelled your name, Don). There was
almost no wind, the water was flat, and viewing conditions were excellent.
The two of us had excellent and very close looks at ANCIENT MURRELETS,
MARBLED MURRELETS,, RHINOCEROS AUKLETS, and COMMON MURRES (but no PIGEON
GUILLEMOTS!). At first, most of the Ancient Murrelets were 300 to 400 yards
offshore in small flocks on the water, although the field marks were clearly
visible even at that distance. During our stay, several feeding frenzies of
birds materialized at various distances from shore, until finally one flock
gathered barely 50 yards offshore, and gave us very good views of the 4
alcid species, all 3 cormorants, HEERMANN'S GULLS, etc. Here's a list of
what I recorded in Washington Park, mainly at Green Point:



Pacific Loon 2

Common Loon 5

Red-necked Grebe 10

Western Grebe 3

Double-crested Cormorant 2

Pelagic Cormorant 2

Brandt's Cormorant 8

Great Blue Heron 1

Surf Scoter 10

Red-breasted Merganser 1

Glaucous-winged Gull 100

Ring-billed Gull 1

Heermann's Gull 10

Bonaparte's Gull 10

Common Murre 20

Rhinoceros Auklet 6

Marbled Murrelet 15

Ancient Murrelet 40

Pacific Wren 4

Golden-crowned Kinglet 2

Song Sparrow 2





Mammals:



Coast Deer 2

Douglas Squirrel 1

Harbor Seal 2



In additional, Don saw several porpoises before my arrival, which were
probably HARBOR PORPOISES.





On the way down to Anacortes, I stopped for a short time in Bellingham at
Padden Lagoon, in the Fairhaven district of town. I was hoping to see the
GREEN HERON which has been seen there 2-3 times in the last couple of weeks.
No luck on the heron, but I saw something even better: four RIVER OTTERS
which were swimming in the lagoon, then climbed up on a sort of wooden ramp
on the east side of the lagoon, which can be closely approached on foot. The
otters seemed to be rolling over and playing on the ramp; they went back
into the lagoon, but then climbed back onto the ramp a couple more times. I
managed to get several pretty good photos, but my photography session ground
to a halt when I filled up my memory card-- bad timing!





Good luck and good birding,



Wayne C. Weber

Delta, BC

contopus at telus.net