Greetings All,
Today Westport Seabirds had another fantastic pelagic. We had great weather though we battled some bouncy seas. The highlight of the day bird wise was an immature Brown Booby that flew by the boat giving decent looks to most on board.
We had a pretty good assortment of other species - nearly 300 Black-footed Albatross, good numbers of both Leach's Storm-Petrels and Fork-tailed Storm-Petrels. A single Sabine's Gull was observed and a South Polar Skua was being escorted away by two Parasitic Jaegers.
The mammal show was also quite excellent:
We had 20 Northern Right Whale Dolphins - a species we don't see every year - several scattered groups of Pacific White-sided Dolphins were also observed - a few individuals of both species participated in some bow riding for those on the bow to get close views.
~15 Risso's Dolphins were observed at the chum spot and we all had excellent looks at two Fin Whales. We don't see Fin Whales very often off Westport, so this was a real treat!
Photos can be found here:http://www.flickr.com/photos/shyalbatross/
Mike Charest obtained a photo of the immature Brown Booby - it can be seen here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikecharest/
Species List:Black-footed Albatross - 295Northern Fulmar - 18Pink-footed Shearwater - 644Sooty Shearwater - 29,689Fork-tailed Storm-Petrel - 79Leach's Storm-Petrel - 41BROWN BOOBY - 1Red-necked Phalarope - 19Sabine's Gull - 1South Polar Skua - 1Parasitic Jaeger - 3Long-tailed Jaeger - 1Common Murre - 23Cassin's Auklet - 50Rhinoceros Auklet - 13Tufted Puffin - 5
Northern Right Whale Dolphin - 20Pacific White-sided Dolphin - 41Risso's Dolphin - 15Harbor Porpoise - 2Fin Whale - 2
For Westport Seabirds,
Ryan ShawTacoma WA
rtshaw80 at hotmail.com