14 birders from the Pacific Northwest enjoyed a calm ocean and some great sightings! The main highlight for many of us was the sighting of a Blue Whale.

Blue Whales are very uncommon in Washington waters. I believe this is only our third sighting out of Westport.
The whale was near several Humpback Whales and remained on the surface for an extended time.
At first, we thought it was a Fin Whale, which we had sightings of last week.
However, several people kept remarking on how long it was and the color seemed more consistent with a Blue.
Jordan Roderick took several photos and they were sent to several whale experts. Indeed it was a Blue Whale!
Blue Whales are one of the largest animals ever to have lived on earth. They can be 110 feet in length!
Fin Whales are the second largest whale and can grow to 85 feet in length. We also encountered 9 Humpback Whales during the day, which is our most common whale.

We had a very good numbers of seabirds with alcids highlighting the list. Five Scripp's Murrelets were sighted.
Two different pairs gave us great looks on the water and close to the boat. The other was observed in flight.
Common Murres were in large numbers with 1,072 recorded. Cassin's and Rhinoceros Auklets had the same number at 137.
One winter plumaged Tufted Puffin also remained on the water for many photos. Coming inshore close to the jetties, we found our first Ancient Murrelet of the fall.

Other notable sightings were Black-footed Albatross-51, Buller's Shearwater-77, 1 Short-tailed Shearwater that Bill Tweit got everyone on and only 3 Fork-tailed Storm-Petrels.
The tide was too high as we came by the jetty for rocky shorebirds, however we saw 2 Black-bellied Plovers and 40 Dunlin on the rocks.
In the harbor, the Marbled Godwit flock numbered around 500 with one Whimbrel and a later a Short-billed Dowitcher among them.

This was our second to last trip of the year and a very memorable one for myself. This was my 250th trip out of Westport and my 30th year with Westport Seabirds!
Many thanks to Phil and Chris Anderson, Terry Wahl, Bill Tweit and all the various spotters for such an education on seabirds and mammals.
Also for all the great adventures that we shared!

Spotters for this trip were Bill Tweit and myself. Boat personnel, spotters and great hosts were Phil and Chris Anderson.

Hope many of you can join us next year!

Bruce LaBar
Tacoma, Wa.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman11.u.washington.edu/pipermail/tweeters/attachments/20201005/7d28964f/attachment.html>