October 2018 Virtual Pelagic trip

A Virtual Pelagic Trip!

10-23-18 – Opening slide. Thank goodness it wasn’t a quiz!

On October 23, 2018, ABC’ers delved deep into Pelagic birding with presentations by Ed Pullen and Ryan Wiese, as well as additional information by Bruce LaBar and Art Wang.

Ed Pullen starts his slides

Ken Brown opened the meeting by recapping upcoming ABC events, and then Clarice Clark presented information on an upcoming guided tour of SE Arizona for Tahoma Audubon this coming spring featuring guide Chris Chappell, formerly of Pierce County. There were only one or two spots left open by the end of the evening! For more info on those spots, contact Clarice or Jerry Broadus at jbroadus@seanet.com.

Ryan Wiese gets into his slide presentation

All pelagic bird species occurring off the coast of Washington were discussed in depth including likelihood of seeing, world populations and scarcity, life histories, etc. The slides were extremely informative and are now available to ABC’ers here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CkekblylR_ufUXRB-FS-DCNJgRiXBOs2/view

Bruce LaBar discusses the underwing patterns of Sooty and Short-tailed Shearwaters

Pelagic trips discussed included Westport, Monterey Bay, Maine, Cape Hatteras, and Hawaii. The concepts of going onboard in shorts and flip-flops (Cape Hatteras) or in swimsuits and then jumping in the water to swim ashore (Hawaii) were happily contemplated!

Art Wang, wearing his Stormy Petrel Hatteras shirt. discusses various pelagic trips

Chumming was discussed. Bruce, a longtime spotter for Westport Seabirds, explained that one reason chumming didn’t happen on their trips until the furthest point was reached was to get accurate counts of the birds. Westport Seabirds has the best data available for this reason. Other trips chum all the way out and have a parade of the same birds following the boat the entire ride. It was revealed that Monterey Bay has banned chumming altogether with the exception of Debi Shearwater’s trips, which should end soon with her retirement. The alternative to chumming is to get chummy with fishing boats.

Fine points were discussed, such as the recent split of Xantus Murrelet into Scripps and Guadelupe.

Some highlights included the fact that Rhino Auklets are OUR birds with approximately 90% of the lower 48 population breeding in Washington waters. Also, Short-tailed Shearwaters, rare as they might seem here, are actually the most populous shearwater species on the planet! Red Phalaropes like to feed in the spume of whales! And yes, those South Polar Skuas really are the thugs you thought, guilty of all possible crimes and some even unimaginable.

Red Phalarope

The very interested group asked excellent questions and kept the meeting going until we got kicked out and all the cookies were gone (thanks, Faye)!

Maine pelagic birders reunited! Presenter Ed Pullen flanked by Carol, Diane, and Faye, wearing Atlantic Puffin shirts

Harrowing Halloween Happening

The sentinel calls the troops

On October 14, 2018, Adam and I proceeded to the UW-Bothell campus, north parking garage roof at 6 PM, which Tweeter Scott Ramos had described as a major crow roosting route. Two other carloads of people showed up to see the big show, but had left disappointed when nothing much had happened before sunset (6:23 PM), just a few small streams of birds in the distance. The roof looked out over the North Creek Wetlands. We stuck it out and were rewarded, or possibly punished, by crows!

Adam told me to turn around slowly

Five minutes after sunset the nice evening got horrendously noisy, and suddenly we were surrounded by crows. We did in fact feel like we were in the eye of a crow cyclone, as they closed in on us from every side! We took lots of pictures, but truly a much wider-angle lens and possibly a drone would have been needed to give the true feel of the onslaught!

Sunset at UW-Bothell

I just wouldn’t have been a bit surprised had Alfred Hitchcock made one of his famous walk-ons at the height of the cawcaphony! As it got darker, they started landing on the floor next to us, blocking our exit from the roof. In fact, they were pushing ever so relentlessly closer to us and covering every tree and building top. Just when my fight-or-flight instinct started to turn on, very suddenly it all stopped almost as if a clock had chimed at 7 PM! The silence was deafening, too, as every bird suddenly dropped into the nearby trees and faded away.

Air traffic controller

They noticed our car and moved to block our exit!

We put down 5000 on eBird, but there could very well have been 10,000, as Scott had estimated. Just couldn’t tell which birds we’d already counted, as they were on all sides of us, seeming to circle us. We drove away feeling a little relieved that we weren’t the center of their universe after all.

Diane’s crow shirt attracts attention

Adam has to wave away the crows

No Halloween Haunted House could compare to this real experience. There was definitely a ghostly vortex on this rooftop with no one but the two of us and thousands of crows on a lonely Sunday night in October.

Just before they suddenly departed a full dark

See more of our photos and short videos here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/76552838@N03/albums/72157702433592684

Field Trip Report E WA Sept 7-10

Ken Brown took our group to Eastern Washington for a check on migration for 4 days from Sept 7 to 10, 2018.  Some really great sightings as well as the inevitable disappointments.

Looks like a pothole!
(Photo/Laurel Parshall)

Forster’s Tern with fish
(Photo/Laurel Parshall)

I missed the trip, but lucky participants were Ken, Ed Pullen, Laurel Parshall, Kay Schimke, Mary Pearse, Richard Smethurst, Carole Breedlove, Kathryn Cooper, Eric Dudley, Fred Matthaei, Jody Hess, and Petrea Stoddard.

The rest of the group makes it through the critter tunnel, leader Ken in back on right
(Photo/Laurel Parshall)

Critter tunnel works for Kay and Richard
(Photo/Laurel Parshall)

Some of their eBird reports are here, including the remarkable report from Lyons Ferry where they had EIGHT warblers, including Chestnut-sided!

Lyons Ferry: https://ebird.org/pnw/view/checklist/S48429808

Columbia NWR: https://ebird.org/pnw/view/checklist/S48395221

Potholes State Park: https://ebird.org/pnw/view/checklist/S48404447

Chestnut-sided Warbler!
(Photo/Laurel Parshall)

Cassin’s Vireo
(Photo/Laurel Parshall)

Roadside specialties included Kestrels and Wild Turkey!

Turkeys!
(Photo/Laurel Parshall)

Kestrels galore
(Photo/Laurel Parshall)

The scenic highlight was Palouse Falls.

Palouse Falls
(Photo/Laurel Parshall)

Lesser Chipmunk at Ryegrass Rest Area
(Photo/Laurel Parshall)

More of Laurel Parshall’s photos can be found on her FLICKR site, and she’d appreciate seeing others’ photos.  https://www.flickr.com/photos/llp_unesolitaire/albums/72157700280625731/with/30045465397/