Wow, what winds and storms these past few days can bring! Neah Bay on Sunday had some amazing numbers of seabirds and other stuff, and today at the Sequim count was no exception.
Ryan Merrill, Mike Crim and I had the pleasure to join Durkee Richards on his sailboat for our annual count around Dungeness bay. The route is several transects past Protection Island toward Dungeness spit and several back and forths covering most of the bay and outer waters.
Our highlights were outstanding, thanks to the previous storms. We tallied 17 Fork-tailed Storm-Petrels, 16 Leach?s Storm-Petrels and 2 Northern Fulmars!! These were my first sightings on this count, which was my 18th year. Ryan was able to get some great photos! We had our usual high numbers of Ancient Murrelets with 720 counted and 8 Yellow-billed Loons which seem to winter in this area every year. Our other highlights include 1 Rhinoceros Auklet, which was the only one on the count, and 1 Bonaparte?s Gull.
Alas, no Laysan Albatross, but one can?t be too greedy. Other highlights of the count will be tweeted by Bob Boekelheide (the compiler) within a few days.

Bruce LaBar
Tacoma,WA