Today I went to Owen's Beach at Point Defiance Park looking to see if any
good seabirds were around. Ran into a fellow birder who said there was a
Humpback Whale seen in the area the past few days, and a few minutes later
saw it at a distance. As we moved to get better views I ran into some other
birders who said they saw a couple Parasitic Jaegers at the Gig Harbor
viewpoint on the 5-mile drive. I wasn't planning on doing that drive but
couldn't resist the opportunity to see this overdue lifer, so I went, and
ran into that same group of birders again! They let me join them in
searching for the jaegers, we started at the Dalco overlook and moved to
the Gig Harbor viewpoint, where we saw 2 jaegers and had much better views
of the Humpback!

Other good sightings were a sea lion off Owen's Beach (looked like a
porpoise at first, heh), quite a few raccoons (more than 10), lots of
Bonaparte's Gulls (I estimated about 750 with numbers combined from the
drive and the beach), plus a Heermann's Gull off the Dalco overlook, likely
the same bird I saw later off the Gig Harbor viewpoint. Great day with a
bird and a mammal lifer seen!

Photos of the whale are on my Flickr if anyone is interested:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/127849726 at N07/

And ebird checklist:
http://ebird.org/ebird/pnw/view/checklist/S32333740

Christopher Clark
Sumner, WA
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