I joined
Westport Seabirds on an incredible start to their 2019 Seabird season. Highlights included:two Short-tailed
Albatross!
Eight Laysan Albatross
Over 125 Black-footed Albatross
a Manx
Shearwater; seven alcid species, including Tufted Puffins, an Ancient Murrelet, and Marbled Murrelets. Because I’m such a poor writer, I am going to heavily plagiarize the much-better-written report that Gene Revelas posted on the Tweeters birders listserv.
The Monte
Carlo left the Westport dock in the dark about 6:30 am and headed due west
along our usual route to Grays Canyon.
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| Looking due east into Grays Harbor |
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| Ocean Shores, Washington at dawn |
We had a
compliment of 11 seabird enthusiasts, including many frequent Westport Seabird
customers and five Westport Seabird spotters.
Captain Phil Anderson and his wife Chris made sure everyone had a
comfortable trip. Official spotters for
the trip were Bill Tweit,
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| Bill describing the flight of a shearwater . . . |
Gene Revelas, and Bruce Labar.
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| Bruce is happy to see albatrosses . . . |
Spotters Bill Shelmerdine and Cara Borre also
joined us, as did Bill’s brother Tim Shelmerdine, who operates Oregon Pelagic Tours.
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| Tim - Scoping out the competition? |
The forecast
promised and delivered great sea conditions with no rain and calm winds all
day. A beautiful, pink sunrise with a
glimmering bright halo around Mt. Rainier was our first visual treat of the
day.
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| Mount Rainier at dawn |
We were a
couple miles offshore before daylight allowed birds to be seen well and counted. The inner shelf had low numbers of the
expected species, such as Pacific Loon, Common Murre, Surf and White-winged
Scoter, Mew Gull, Western X Glaucous-winged Gull hybrid, and Western Gull.
About 12 miles offshore, the first excited
call of the day was “Manx Shearwater!” as a small, white-bellied shearwater
flew down the starboard side of the boat affording views to the folks looking
that way.
We continued west to deep
water and starting picking up Black-legged Kittiwakes (which would be our most
abundant gull for the day),
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| Yes, that's a California Gull in front of the Kittiwakes |
Northern Fulmars and our first Black-footed Albatross.
Rhinoceros
Auklets replaced Murres as the common large alcid, and Cassin’s Auklets began
to appear. The first of what would be
about six Pomarine Jaegers for the day, the only Jaeger species expected at
this time year, was also seen. A
distant Laysan Albatross was identified soaring above and below the horizon
well ahead of us. Captain Phil Anderson,
did a great job chasing and staying on this bird (think Nantucket sleigh ride)
and everyone got good looks, which amazingly turned out to be our first of
eight Laysans!
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| Laysan Albatross |
In deep
water over the canyon edge, increasing numbers of Black-foots was a good omen.
About 36 miles out, we stopped to chum.
Phil cut the engine, a testament to the calm seas and light winds, and
we enjoyed 30-45 minutes of seabirding in the quiet deep ocean setting.
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| Spotter Bill Tweit gets birders on the good birds |
About 20 Black-footed Albatross joined us in
turn over that time, as well as a couple more Laysans, Herring Gulls, and a few Thayer's (Iceland) and adult California Gulls, and numbers of Kittiwakes.
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| Black-legged Kittiwake |
On the
radar, Phil noticed a fishing boat about 10 miles to our southwest, trawling
along the continental shelf edge in deep water.
We motored that way and this track in deep water just over the canyon
edge turned out to be alcid alley as we observed and bumped many Rhinoceros and
Cassin’s Auklets, and ultimately added four Tufted Puffins and an Ancient
Murrelet along this corridor. A few
possible Parakeet Auklet sightings, of birds flying away fast, were all confirmed
to be Rhinos in the photos. Winter
(October through April) is the expected season for this rare species off of
Westport, but despite focused efforts, we could not find one yesterday.
As we
arrived at the trawler in bright sunlight, we could see good numbers of
Albatross and gulls in its wake. Fortuitously, the boat was just landing and
processing its catch.
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| F/V Pacific Future |
Phil
positioned us so we had the sun behind us, and we soon found ourselves sitting
in the midst of about 100 Albatross and a similar number of gulls, many of
which we sitting on the water.
Fellow
spotter, Bill Shelmerdine almost immediately called out “Short-tailed
Albatross!”
A large,
dark juvenile albatross with an oversized, bubble-gum pink bill was sitting
about 50 yards off the port side of the boat among some Black-foots jockeying
for fish scraps.
All aboard
scrambled to get on the bird, while Bill continued to scan and within a minute
or so he called out a second Short-tailed Albatross close to the first one.
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| Seeing two Short-tailed Albatrosses at once is pretty Amazing! |
Needless to
say, pandemonium, as well as all cameras and even the smart phones aboard,
broke out and we spent the next hour slowly meandering through these and the
other birds in the wake of the trawler.
During this
time, we got to see the two Short-tailed Albatross repeatedly take off, fly
short distances, and land and forage on the water. We had the
same experience with the five Laysan Albatross and an estimated 90 Black-footed
Albatross that were turned out to be in this gathering.
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| Laysan - Black-footed - Short-tailed Albatrosses |
We added a few dark-bellied shearwaters here,
which all turned out to be Sooty rather than Short-tails on inspection. The world
population of Short-tailed Albatross is currently estimated to be about 4500
birds and this vulnerable species, most of whom nest on the volcanic island of
Torishima, in the Izu Islands off Japan, was assumed to be extinct in the late 1940s. Young birds spending their early years of
life at sea in the Northeast Pacific, like these birds, is what saved this
species from extinction when volcanic activity on Torishima decimated the
nesting colony (and killed all 150 inhabitants) in 1902. To see two individuals
together off of Washington State is truly remarkable and hopefully a sign of
their improving numbers.
We finally
had to head home, so we turned northeast for the trip back to the dock, picking
up the previously mentioned Puffins and an Ancient Murrelet on this leg. Back on the
outer continental shelf in about 500 ft of water, we saw several tall, thin
whale blows just ahead of us.
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| Thar she blows! |
We slowed
and as we got looks at the long, smooth, dark backs and dorsal fins of these
three animals, we realized they were Fin Whales, the second largest species on
earth (after Blue Whale) and another rare sighting for Washington.
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| Awe-inspiring to see these Leviathans! |
These
animals cooperatively stayed at the surface, one was a very large, likely
female, Fin Whale that appeared to be 70-80 feet in length, based on the
rolling back to dorsal fin distance.
Closer to
the harbor entrance, the buoys for the Dungeness crab pots vied with our attention; i often see the distant pot buoys and think they are birds . . .
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| Those are the Olympic Mountains in the distance |
We saw several Gray Whales spouting and showing their
flukes on their northbound migration. We
also got great looks at four Marbled Murrelets (two pair) close by on the
water, still in basic (non-breeding) plumage, calling and doing their bill-up
courtship display in unison.
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| ESA-Threatened Marbled Murrelets nest inland in old-growth forests |
In this
area, along the Jetty, and in the harbor, we added Red-throated Loon, Pigeon
Guillemot, all three Cormorant species, and Brant to the trip bird list, as
well as Steller’s and California Sea Lion, and Harbor Porpoise.
Back at the
dock, it was all smiles after one of the most exciting days any of us had ever
on a Westport Seabirds trip.
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| Chris Anderson - best "First Mate" in the Fleet! |
Westport
Pelagic offshore Grays Harbor eBird Checklist is Here
Westport
Pelagic offshore Grays Canyon eBird Checklist is Here
Westport
Pelagic south of Grays Canyon eBird Checklist is Here
Westport
Pelagic offshore Pacific County eBird Checklist is Here
Westport
Pelagic offshore Grays Harbor eBird Checklist is Here
Westport
Pelagic inshore Grays Harbor eBird Checklist is Here
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