With our scheduled August trips filled, this Thursday trip was added to meet the requests. We had a full boat in no time with most birders from Washington and two from Vancouver, B.C. The Vancouver (WA) Audubon Society had several members represented.

The day began with overcast skies and pretty good seas. We had sprinkles but no heavy rain. The wind picked up throughout the day, but all in all, the seas remained good for viewing.

Starting out, we immediately encountered 500+ Sooty Shearwaters close to shore. This shearwater is a great benchmark to see early to help compare with other shearwaters later, especially Short-tailed Shearwaters. Getting out to the deeper water was pretty quiet until we came upon a shrimp boat and later another fishing boat. There were lots of seabirds waiting for any by-catch with over 2,000 Pink-footed Shearwaters being the most numerous. 85 Black-footed Albatross, 217 Sooty Shearwaters, 5 Northern Fulmars, 13 Buller's Shearwaters, 4 Fork-tailed Storm Petrels and 4 Short-tailed Shearwaters were observed near these boats.

At our chum site in Grays Canyon, which is roughly 40 miles from shore, we had good success as the winds picked up. These seabirds can smell for miles away and within a few minutes we had Fork-tailed Storm Petrels coming in. Black-footed Albatross, Northern Fulmars, shearwaters joined in shortly. We had two South Polar Skuas pass by near here, 1 Parasitic and 1 Long-tailed Jaeger came very close to the boat for excellent views, and 7 Arctic Terns passed by. As we were recording numbers in the wheel house of the boat, Chris Anderson looked down and said there are some murrelets right here! Indeed, 2 Scripps's Murrelets were right next to the boat. Most everyone got good looks before they disappeared in deeper water.

On our journey back, our highlight was a Flesh-footed Shearwater on the water with many other shearwaters. Again most everyone got great looks and many photos were taken.

Along the Westport jetty, we observed 5 Wandering Tattlers, 1 Black Turnstone, 15 Surfbirds and as we got close to the marina the Marbled Godwit flock was flying around with about 600 estimated.

Mammal highlights included 4 Humpbacked Whales, 8 Dall's Porpoise and 3 Northern Fur Seals.

For further information and the complete list from the trip, please visit our website at www.westportseabirds.com

Spotters were Scott Mills and myself. Boat personnel and spotters were Phil and Chris Anderson.

Bruce LaBar
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