Hi again Tim & all,
A brief follow-up here since I realized that the questions in your reply
must have been aimed at Phil rather than at me.
I kind of agree in terms of level of patience for staring through a
scope, but my understanding is that Phil usually just does these sea
watches for 1-2 hours in a stint.
Beyond that, I'll have to refer your questions on to Phil. I'm still
happy if I can pick out a few Sooty Shearwaters among the gulls
offshore, when I manage to get out to the coast.
Cheers,
Joel
On Sun, 2015-11-01 at 17:29 -0800, Tim Rodenkirk wrote:
Just curious, excuse me for my ignorance. I admit to not really
liking offshore scoping, sitting in one spot all day just isn't my
thing. That said, I have spent up to a couple hours scoping before
(its brutal)! Anyhow, I see your list and if it was mine (a much less
experienced pelagic observer) I would have all sorts of stuff like
shearwater sp. 1000, loon sp. 1000. etc. Did you leave those off? Are
you sure you didn't see any RN Phalaropes (they are hard to ID when
they fly by the boat on pelagic trips sometimes!)? Etc. etc. When I
scope, it seems like I can't ID half the stuff because it is so far
off, but maybe you can ID everything at Boiler Bay. I imagine you are
just doing estimates of what you did see and going from there. But to
see no XX species sp. seems a bit amazing (maybe you report those
separately?).
My two cents (don't throw the tomatoes to hard),
Tim R
Coos Bay
On Sun, Nov 1, 2015 at 5:03 PM, Joel Geier <joel.geier@xxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Hi Tom, Phil & All,
Not true about the scopolamine, Tom, I got seasick just
reading this!
But maybe that's just because my one pelagic trip (out of
Depoe Bay on an extremely choppy winter day, as a birthday
present -- one of Greg Gillson's trips, co-guided by Matt
Hunter). I still wonder if there was any connection between
that birthday present and the life insurance policy that I
took out not long before that ;-)
It wound up with nearly every single birder except me, Paula
Vanderheul, Amy Schoener, and Terry Steele turning green and
puking over the railing. Paula, Amy and I stayed clear of that
by riding on the front end of the boat, so we froze half to
death, but at least we didn't get sick. I tried to go in the
cabin to warm up once but I immediately started feeling sick,
so I went back out on deck and stayed there for the rest of
the trip.
I'm not sure how Terry did it since it was also his first time
offshore on a small boat, but he did even better, chopping
chum while most of the rest of the paying passengers were
volunteering their own chum over the railing. Terry and I were
the only ones still on deck when we picked up a Fork-tailed
Storm-Petrel pedaling off over the water. A little farther on
I spotted what I called out as a Xantus's Murrelet (well
honestly I had no idea so that was my best guess). But the
captain backed up to the GPS coordinates where I called it
out, and it turned out to be a very cooperative Ancient
Murrelet that swam past the boat along both sides, not more
than 30 feet out.
Even the folks who were still green around the gills dragged
themselves out of the cabin and got to see close-up views of
an Ancient Murrelet. I sure hope that compensated for the rest
of the "pelagic experience"!!!
Anyway Phil, good spotting! In my view this is the way that
smart people do their pelagic birding.
Happy birding,
Joel
That's quite the pelagic trip, Phil, no scopolamine required.
Nice finds!
-----Original Message-----
Phil Pickering wrote:
Boiler Bay
1 LAYSAN ALBATROSS (distant seen by Peter)
2 BLACK-FOOTED ALBATROSS
8000+ Northern Fulmar (steady 10-50/minute most
beyond 1 mile, very roughly 10% pale-end)
1 Buller's Shearwater (Christopher)
500+ Pink-footed Shearwater (many close in early
but then shifting further and further out, only a
few detected after 10:30)
1 BLACK-VENTED SHEARWATER
1+ Short-tailed Shearwater
2000+ Sooty Shearwater
12 Leach's Storm-Petrel
5 Fork-tailed Storm-Petrel
8000+ Red Phalarope (increasing late)
1 LONG-TAILED JAEGER (Peter)
9 Parasitic Jaeger
56 Pomarine Jaeger (increasing late)
8 jaeger sp.
1 Sabine' Gull
24 Ancient Murrelet
80 Marbled Murrelet (most S)
80 Cassin's Auklet
16 Rhinoceros Auklet
