Greetings All ?

The Westport Seabirds
trips on Saturday, August 13 and Sunday, August 14, enjoyed consecutive rare
days of calm seas, light winds, and enough cloud cover so that even glare was
not a problem!? In fact, other than a few short periods of rain on Sunday,
the weather was perfect.? Those calm seas set the stage for great viewing
of huge numbers of the "small birds", particularly Red Phalaropes,
Fork-tailed Storm-Petrels and Cassin's Auklets.? The phalarope numbers
were completely reversed from normal, with Reds outnumbering Red-necked by a 10
to 1 ratio.? Sundays total of 748 Red Phalaropes set a new one day record
for Westport Seabirds; they seemed to be almost everywhere all day long and we
got great looks at them!? We also had large numbers of Fork-tailed
Storm-Petrel, 1701 and 1173 to be precise, and once we got over Grays Canyon,
both trips enjoyed ?Leach's Storm-Petrel
for comparison.? Other species that were more common than usual included Arctic
Terns and Sabine's Gulls.?Both days got the jaeger/skua slam, which
included 10 skuas, 21 Pomarines, 5 Parastics on Sunday and 9 Long-tails on
Saturday with a few coming right up to the bow onf the boat and one individual harassing
a Sabine?s Gull!? Our first Buller's of the year showed up on Saturday,
and we had good looks at four more on Sunday.? And, a couple of Tufted
Puffin adults that posed for us were much appreciated.

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We also had some
excellent marine mammals.? The total of 5 Humpback Whales on Sunday
included a couple of very cooperative animals, and a pod of Risso's Dolphins
were also very confiding; they are our rarest regularly
seen?dolphin.? The rest of the marine mammal list included a pod of
three Orcas that eluded most of the onboard observers, Dall's Porpoise, Harbor
Porpoise, Elephant Seal , Northern Fur Seal, and Stellers Sea Lion.?

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Leaders on Saturday were
Scott Mills, Ryan Shaw and Ryan Merrill.?
Sunday?s leaders were Scott Mills, Bill Tweit and Michael Donahue.?


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Although most of the
remaining August and September trips are full, remember there will be two October
trips this year.? Sign up now before they are full!

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For Westport Seabirds,

Bill Tweit and Ryan Shaw

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Species Seen (8/13,8/14)

Surf Scoter (2,3) Inshore

Black-footed Albatross (190,53)

Northern Fulmar (1041,658)

Pink-footed Shearwater(82,430)

Flesh-footed Shearwater (0,1)

Buller?s Shearwater (8,4)

Sooty Shearwater(7757,7285)

Fork-tailed Storm-Petrel (1701,1173)

Leach?s Storm-Petrel (17,16)

Brandt?s Cormorant(84,39)Inshore

Double-crested Cormorant (6,18) Inshore

Pelagic Cormorant (45,55) Inshore

Brown Pelican (729,575) Inshore

Peregrine Falcon (1,0) Offshore!

Marbled Godwit (0,600) Westport

Semipalmated Plover (0,1) Offshore!

Black Turnstone (4,0) Jetty

Surfbird(12,0) Jetty

Red-necked Phalarope (5,75)

Red Phalarope (306,748!)

Phalarope sp. (0,2)

Sabine?s Gull (17,59)

Heermann?s Gull (1880,1925) Inshore

Western, Glaucous-winged, and hybrids (428,620)

California Gull (38,687)

Arctic Tern (7,53)

South Polar Skua (6,10)

Pomarine Jaeger (3,21)

Parasitic Jaeger (6,5)

Long-tailed Jaeger (9,4)

jaeger sp. (1,1)

Common Murre (1027,682)

Pigeon Guillemot (40,56)

Cassin?s Auklet(38,99)

Rhinoceros Auklet (53,88)

Tufted Puffin (4,2)