Jennifer,
Its not very common, but it does happen. I first saw Fork-tailed Storm Petrels,
maybe half a dozen of them, in Yaquina Bay in August, 1983. Sometime a few
years after that up to fifty of them came into the bay and hung around for
several weeks. That time they were seen at least as far inside the bay as the
Coast Guard Station east of the bridge.
Darrel
From: "jennifer a rothe" <jennifer.a.rothe@xxxxxxxxx>
To: "OBOL" <obol@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, April 14, 2017 5:49:01 PM
Subject: [obol] Fork-tailed Storm-petrel under Newport bridge?
Hello OBOLers,
My co-workers and I were driving west on the jetty road to do a bit of birding
before heading home when I spotted a small bird flying near the bridge pilings
looked a hell of a lot like a FTSP. This struck me as odd, so I yelled at the
driver to stop the vehicle. We all piled out to observe and-no doubt about it-
FTSP more or less underneath the Newport bridge (at one point in the same
narrow scope view as a White-winged Scoter, which might have been a first for
me). The bird spent most of its time at the water's surface, with wings out,
doing a fair bit of its classical pitter-pattering foraging style.
I've observed Storm-petrels a number of times from various locations on-shore,
but I've never before encountered them in between the jetties... Much less
almost directly under the bridge!
My question to the many OBOLers with many more years of experience than me out
here is this: how commonly have you had Storm-petrels in relatively sheltered
waters? Any and all insights most welcome.
Regards,
Jen Rothe
Corvallis/ Yachats
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