[obol] Seawatch 26 Oct 2014 S. Jetty Umpqua River
- From: Matthew G Hunter <matthewghunter@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: obol@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2014 20:01:58 -0700
Hi Folks,
I decided last minute (Saturday night) to go over to the S. Jetty of the
Umpqua River and join in the fun. I arrived there about 0900 and did three
1-hr watches plus a final 30-min watch. Following are some photos and
numbers. I tell you, it was so fun watching all the birds streaming by
those 3.5 hours; I'm not kidding when I say it really seemed like 3.5
minutes. Anyway, I was incredibly lucky weather wise, as there were huge
squalls/clouds to the north and south several miles.
My favorite observations of the morning were:
*5 species of "tubenoses"
*Several beautiful Sabine's Gulls including two flying south right over the
beach.
*Two somewhat late Caspian Terns
*Red Phalaropes that landed fairly close by
*Peregrine Falcon "following" a Surf Scoter flock about 3/4 mile out.
*The way the gulls hour after hour came south near the end of the jetty,
then used the uplift from the south jetty to cruise west toward the beach,
then proceeded south. I had a nearly constant stream of gulls of many
species coming right by me.
*Just the massive number of birds constantly going by, from within feet of
me to as far as I could see west at sea.
Some photos of closer birds:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/matthewghunter/sets/72157648596060338/
Following is the list of all species observed during the total 3.5 hours of
observation, but the numbers are the maximum from any ONE HOUR. And, these
are only birds within about a mile of shore, there were many thousands
farther out that I could not identify to species, and even these are surely
underestimates.
Cackling Goose 160
Northern Pintail 60
Green-winged Teal 20
Greater/Lesser Scaup 50
Surf Scoter 1,300
White-winged Scoter 60
Long-tailed Duck 1
Red-breasted Merganser 1
Red-throated Loon 5
Pacific Loon 1,500 (prob incl more RTLOs)
Common Loon 50
Western Grebe 3
Northern Fulmar 100
Pink-footed Shearwater 2
Buller's Shearwater 6
Sooty Shearwater 2
Storm-Petrel sp. 1
Brandt's Cormorant 20
Double-crested Cormorant 180
Pelagic Cormorant 5
Brown Pelican 150
Black Turnstone 2
Surfbird 1
Sanderling 4
Dunlin 900
Least Sandpiper 6
Red Phalarope 60
Pomarine Jaeger 2
Common Murre 60
Cassin's Auklet 300
Black-legged Kittiwake 14
Sabine's Gull 2
Bonaparte's Gull 75
Heermann's Gull 450
Mew Gull 110
Western Gull 350
California Gull 800
Herring Gull 60
Thayer's Gull 1
Glaucous-winged Gull 11
Western x Glaucous-winged Gull (hybrid) 3
Caspian Tern 2
Peregrine Falcon 1
Amazed at the power and breadth of migration...,
Matt Hunter
Melrose, OR
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