Russ Namitz was in the neighborhood today, he texted me about 11AM and said
he had re-found the SNOW BUNTING out on the south end of the N. Spit of
Coos Bay (originally found on 12/20 by Sean Burns when there were two
buntings).
Anyhow, I drove and met him and we birded for about an hour before he had
to meet a friend. We first stopped at Fossil Point in Empire where the most
unusual bird was a male BLACK SCOTER. From there we drove directly to Cape
Arago. It was pretty slow offshore and very windy with the occasional
squall moving in. Just about when we were ready to quit Russ got on a
shearwater (our only tuberose) that I was also able to get on very quickly
also. It appeared small and was all dark above and all white below. There
was no smudginess in the facial area (very clean white to black) and we
could not make out anything but white in the vent area. We had pretty good
looks at it and both thought it looked really good for MANX SHEARWATER; not
sure if there are any January records from Oregon? We had two on the Coos
Bay CBC on 20 December also.
I did see a couple Brown Pelicans headed south while I was there, no
surprise with 200+ up in the Newport area!
Enjoy,
Tim R
Coos Bay
