The Coast 9/14 – 9/15

The morning of the 14th was standard Washington weather-cool and foggy. Our first stop, at 7:40 am was La Push, located along the coast, within the Quileute Indian Reservation. The scenery is beautiful, with huge rock formations rising from the ocean floor.

We walked about a mile, seeing the expected birds, including this Bald Eagle.

We stopped at other spots along the coast, finding gulls, scoters, loons and cormorants. At the Kalaloch Campground we got good looks at the Surf Scoter.

Alex had promised some sight-seeing today, so he turned off the highway and took us to see the world’s largest spruce tree.

At about 1:30 we stopped at the Hoquiam Sewer Treatment Plant to view the ponds. Alex set his scope down, looked through it to adjust it and found he was on the bird of the day, the Eurasian Wigeon. It is much like the American Wigeon but is a rufous overall rather than having a green and cream-colored head. This individual seems to stay with his American cousins.

We made a few stops here and there and finally arrived at Westport Marina.

Here we found 650 Marbled Godwit. These are sandy brown shorebirds with very long pink and black bills. They do everything together. Alex was hoping to find a similar bird, the Bar-tailed Godwit, among them but it wasn’t there.

We called it a day and went to the small grocery store to buy snacks for tomorrows pelagic tour. We were all a little nervous about getting seasick so we were buying all of the ginger products we could find. I even made ginger tea to put in the water bottles. Dad had a prescription motion sickness patch that he applied well in advance of our early morning departure.

Sep 15, 2022 – Westport Seabirds Pelagic to Grays Canyon

We arrived at the docks promptly at 6:00 with our snacks and ginger products. The pelagic tour leader, Bill Tweit, wrote such an accurate summary I decided to include it here. I will insert photos that we managed to take. Even with calm seas the boat was in constant motion so photos are imperfect.

Westport Seabirds Pelagic
Thursday September 15, 2022
Summary written by Bill Tweit

Great birds, great marine mammals and smooth waters added up to a highly memorable Westport Seabirds pelagic trip onboard the Monte Carlo on September 15. Most of the participants were on a Wildside Nature Tours, led by Alex Lamoreaux and Chris Brown, and a few other birders joined. Numbers in parentheses are the totals for the day.

Birds were generally numerous all day, beginning with large strings of Common Murres (1433) a few miles offshore, mostly still flightless adult males and chicks drifting north after the young had fledged from their Oregon colonies. Two Common Terns (5) were being harassed by a Parasitic Jaeger (32), giving us a preview of the abundance of jaegers for the day.

We also saw the first of many Humpback Whales (28), while we were still in the nearshore area. After the trip, we learned that one of the Humpback Whales was CRC-19155, of the Hawaiian breeding population. Many groups of Red-necked Phalaropes (134) flew past our bow heading south. We saw migrant waterfowl in flocks all day, mostly Northern Pintail (172).

Further offshore, as we neared the 50 fathom line (300’ depth), the first large groups of Sooty Shearwaters (5180) appeared and Sabine’s Gulls (245) began to be seen frequently. They were accompanied by numerous Parasitic Jaegers and a few Pomarines (16), by the end of the day we had recorded near record numbers of Parasitics. In this area, as we watched a dark bird harassing a Sabine’s Gull, we realized that this dark bird was not another jaeger, but instead was a Peregrine (2) trying to capture a Sabine’s Gull. The pursuit, with amazing dives and twisting evasions, moved closer to us as we watched, and eventually was directly over us for a few moments before moving off to an unknown end since we lost track of them. Pink-footed Shearwater (331) numbers began to increase at this point, and the first Short-tailed Shearwaters (607) were detected.

We were headed for the area where the shrimp trawlers were fishing, and as we neared them three South Polar Skuas (13) made an appearance providing good views of both light- and dark-bodied birds.

Although the trawlers were not attracting many birds, we enjoyed the numbers of birds in the area.

The first Black-footed Albatross (8) and Northern Fulmars (24) were also found in this area, just south of Grays Canyon. Single Buller’s Shearwater (11) and Arctic Tern (3) appeared briefly. The numbers of marine mammals in the area kept us scanning the horizons for telltale splashes and blows. Four species of cetaceans were in this one area: 1 Humpback Whale, 7 Dall’s Porpoise (38), 20 Pacific White-sided Dolphins (982), and a large but distant group of about 150 Northern Right-Whale Dolphins sped past us (170).

As we turned to catch up with them, a single alcid on the water caught our eye, an immature HORNED PUFFIN. A very cooperative bird, it sat for us as we circled it, with cameras frantically clicking. Unfortunately, stopping for the puffins meant we lost track of the dolphins. This is the first Horned Puffin for Westport Seabirds since 2011!

Since we were already south of Grays Canyon at this point, we headed southwest into deeper water, going from 400’ depth to almost 2000’ in just a few miles, to see if we could catch up with the speedy dolphin gang, no luck on that score. Small groups of flying Cassin’s Auklets (96) began to appear over the deep waters of the canyon, and one pair on the water afforded good views, which the Red Phalarope (1) that flew past did not. Once we were well over the deep waters south of the canyon, we stopped to chum but the little bit of wind that we noted when we stopped quickly dissipated, so the effectiveness of the chum was low as success depends on a breeze to carry the scent. It did attract a Fork-tailed Storm-Petrel (20) and a couple of albatross circled us, attracted either by the chum or the crowd of birders. Even still, we enjoyed watching the passing birds as we drifted silently without the boat engines running. A nearby Northern Fur Seal (2) seemed relatively undisturbed by our presence. Our attention was drawn to a Parasitic Jaeger engaged in aerial acrobatics, when we realized it was after a small passerine, likely the American Pipit we had heard overhead just a few minutes earlier. Soon up to three Parasitics were chasing the poor passerine, and an Arctic Tern began chasing one of the jaegers!

A skua flew by, cast a casual eye at the commotion, and kept going. We don’t know how it ended, but it went on for long enough that it can’t have been a positive outcome for the passerine. Heading back east, as we neared the Continental Shelf, we encountered a massive herd of 800 Pacific White-sided Dolphin and 20 more Northern Right Whale Dolphins. Both dolphins came in to ride our bow wave for a few minutes, while others performed somersaults and other acrobatics nearby.

Once we returned to waters over the shelf, we continued to see smaller groups of dolphins as we headed first for a few more shrimpers that were fishing east of the end of Grays Canyon. Again, we found them relatively devoid of birds but large numbers of shearwaters and Sabine’s Gulls were feeding on bait just inshore of the trawlers, with more dolphins and a couple of lunge-feeding Humpback Whales. A few more Buller’s Shearwaters were with these flocks, providing better looks than in the morning, and we found one area that held large numbers of Short-tailed Shearwaters with great comparisons with Sooty. Amidst all of this abundance, one area held skua, numerous Parasitics, a few Pomarines and one adult Long-tailed (1), giving us the “jaeger slam” in quick succession. This was also the area that held the largest numbers of Rhinocerous Auklets (63) and California Gulls (563), which we had been seeing in small numbers throughout the trip. Three Herring Gulls (3) here were our first of the fall, aside from a lone bird in August.

The excitement didn’t drop off as we headed back to the harbor. First, a group of 9 Pomarine Jaegers on the water marked the end of the great jaeger show we had been enjoying all day. About a half hour out, we came to an abrupt halt to watch a pod of approx. 8 Orca, apparently transients (Bigg’s Killer Whales) of the T-38 group (the matriarch is T-38, born in 1980), as they surfaced and lob-tailed. Reluctantly leaving them, we spotted the last skua of the day much closer to shore than is normal for this species. Then, we were entertained for a few moments by a Savannah Sparrow that came aboard and hitched a ride back to shore. The excitement wasn’t over though, as we neared the end of the Westport jetty, we checked the gulls perched on a log floating less than a mile off the jetties, and were stunned to see a BROWN BOOBY sitting among them. More pandemonium as we circled the log, while the booby sat and posed for pictures.

Finally, back into Grays Harbor, a couple of Harbor Porpoise (2) made it a seven cetacean species day! The last excitement of the day came after we tied up but before we disembarked, as a Peregrine cruised in low and fast, flushing all of the Marbled Godwits (800), which helped us ascertain that the godwit flock held a Willet, but no Bar-tailed.

Our second Peregrine of the day, not a typical pelagic trip! This was a trip that most of us won’t forget anytime soon. As usual, we had the privilege of the superb skippering by Phil Anderson, and his wife Chris as a great first mate. Spotters for the trip were Scott Mills and Bill Tweit, with credit to many of the sharp-eyed birders on board, especially Alex Lamoreaux, Chris Brown, Bob Archer and Eric Heisey.

Marine Wildlife:
“Bigg’s” Orca/Killer Whale
Humpback Whale
Northern Right-whale Dolphin
Pacific White-sided Dolphin
Dall’s Porpoise
Pacific Harbor Porpoise
Pacific Harbor Seal
California Sea Lion
Steller’s Sea Lion
Northern Fur Seal
Blue Shark
Ocean Sunfish/Mola mola

I will add a few more photos of unidentified marine mammals. Keeping the bird ID’s correct was all we could handle!

We had a great day and nobody got sick!