Hi All,


On Sunday around 10:40 am I saw two southward-flying Synthliboramphus
murrelets off Sunset Avenue in Edmonds. I immediately thought to myself:
?See, Ancients sometimes DO fly in pairs.? However, several details I saw
suggested Xantus? Murrelet more than Ancient ? unfortunately the birds got
away?They had uniformly sooty/blackish backs and upperwings (including dark
scapulars, and the back did not appear paler--that is, gray, under excellent
lighting conditions) and showed bright whitish wing linings and dark
trailing edges to the flight feathers. The wing linings flashed white
several times during rocking flight. I could not see white on the sides of
the neck of either bird, and the area from the throat-to-chin appeared
white, and the bill dark. Unfortunately, while my distance and viewing
angle were great for seeing the body and wings, getting a clear view of the
anterior end of either bird was tough. The pair appeared to land/dissolve
into the water off the ferry terminal ? a behavior that is so typical of
Ancients, but I?m not familiar with in Xantus?? Dennis Duffy and I tried to
relocate them for another two hours, unfortunately to no avail.



There was a lot of activity off Sunset, with upwards of 100 Bonaparte?s
Gulls in the area, many Mew Gulls coming through, at least one juvenile
Parasitic Jaeger, a dozen+ Rhinoceros Auklets, a handful of Common Terns and
murres, Red-necked Grebes and one Red-necked Phalarope.


--
Dr. Todd Hass
Affiliate Curator of Ornithology
Burke Museum
University of Washington
Seattle, WA 98195-3010
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