Hello, Vic and Tweeters,

Quenn and Randy Charrier and I did the boat survey for the Port
Townsend CBC yesterday, 12/17, including not too far north of PNP.
Our route covered Admiralty Inlet, Port Townsend Bay, and Oak Bay
south to Olele Pt, in lovely flat calm conditions nearly all day.

Along with good flocks of Pacific Loons and fewer RT and Common Loons
was one nice basic Yellow-billed Loon in the outer parts of Oak Bay
between Olele Pt and Marrowstone Is. We also tried hard to turn a
Pacific Loon into an Arctic, but no luck for us.

It's particularly interesting that you have so many Bonaparte's Gulls
at PNP, because we didn't see one Bonaparte's all day. Conversely,
the most abundant species on our boat survey was Mew Gull, including
several hundred feeding off the southern point of Marrowstone Is.
Total Mews on our count 558.

We were pleased to find that some of the most abundant species we
observed included species of concern for Puget Sound, including
pretty good numbers of Western Grebes, White-winged Scoters, and
Marbled Murrelets. In order of decreasing abundance for the day --
Common Murre - 486, WW Scoter - 443, W Grebe - 332, Pigeon Guillemot
- 226, Pacific Loon - 134, Dunlin - 114, Surf Scoter - 113, Brandt's
Cormorant - 110, RB Merganser - 108, Ancient Murrelet - 103, Marbled
Murrelet - 49, and more. The immature Brown Pelican is still present
at the Port Townsend boat haven.

Bob Boekelheide
Sequim

From: Vicnelson3 at aol.com
Date: December 16, 2011 3:32:19 PM PST
To: tweeters at u.washington.edu
Subject: [Tweeters] Point No Point Arctic Loon

This morning at 8:30 I saw a probable Arctic Loon in front of the old
boathouse 200 meters west of the PNP lighthouse. It was relatively
close and I had a good view of the white flank patch and white cheek
area. Several Pacific Loons(47 later in the day), a couple of Common
Loons and a Red-throated Loon were nearby for comparisons. There are
also 800-1000 Bonaparte Gulls, many Marbled Murrelets and Common
Murres in the area.

Vic Nelson
Point No Point
Kitsap County, Washington
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