Kathy, Tim Rodenkirk and I stood at Cape Arago for about 2 hours this morning. I'm not good at tallying birds, but here's an idea of what we had:
massive movement of LOONS headed south, all three species.large numbers of SCOTERS, mostly Surf, some White-winged going by - one BLACK mixed in one flock
Many HEERMAN'S GULLS, plus wads of other gulls including small numbers of BONAPARTE'S GULLS. Only 1 BLACK-LEGGED KITTIWAKE though - most must have been further out. 3 SABINE'S GULLS were the highlights
2 ELEGANT TERNS flew by Good numbers of BROWN PELICANS headed southLots of COMMON MURRES moving south, small numbers of CASSIN'S AUKLETS, a couple of RHINOS, no confirmed Marbled.
Many many PHALAROPES presumably REDS - scads everywhere flying south, sitting on the water.
At least 4 JAEGERS, of which we felt good about two POMERINES.A couple of SHEARWATERS of the Sooty/ST type, and a handful of close FULMARS.
Best birds however were about 6 or so LEACH'S STORM PETRELS just right off shore, wonderful views. There may have been a dark rumped type storm petrel but not sure what it was.
That's about what I recall. Good weather until about 1/2 hour ago or so when things got ugly and we scurried away. Nice viewing but due to good conditions I think a lot was further out - you could see large number of birds way off shore but too far for us to look at - we concentrated on the stuff moving right off the reef.
Thanks to Mike P and Tim for helping to kick our butts out of bed, for a change.
Cheers Dave Lauten and Kathy Castelein OBOL archives: www.freelists.org/archive/obol Manage your account or unsubscribe: //www.freelists.org/list/obol Contact moderators: obol-moderators@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
