I'm awake at 5 AM thinking about this.
It seems like you have 4 ways to watch seabirds.
You can do a "seawatch" from land. My tolerance for this lasts about 3-5
minutes. I scan back and forth, trying to follow moving birds or waiting
for some small alcid to pop up on the swells for a fraction of a second.
You have to stand in the wind and rain or peek out of a barely open car
window while running the heater. If you don't live at the coast, you have
to get up at 3 AM to get to a viewpoint by dawn or you'll miss the show. If
you get up at dawn and arrive at 10 AM you've missed it. The birds are
moving by as little dots way out there. How you identify them and estimate
distance is a mystery. People discuss how you count them and what species
they are. It's sort of like those folks who identify hawks when they're
only specks in the distance. (See ** below)
You can take one of those "repositioning" cruises. They cost quite a bit.
You travel in comfort, but you are quite high off the water and small birds
are hard to see. You need to figure out how to get to the start and get home
from the landing of the ship. I've never done one of those trips, (Carol
wouldn't fly, so logistics were prohibitive.) so I can't say much more about
this option.
You can go out as a "fisheries observer" on a fishing vessel as long as a
football field. Stable. The ship's factory provides unlimited chum and
draws lots of birds. You can stay out for a whole migration season. You
get your sea legs and bird in your free time. You have to work, but you get
paid to do this. See page 134-145 in Oregon Birds Vol 14:2, 1988.
http://www.orbirds.org/orbirdssummer1988.pdf
You can go out on a regular one-day "pelagic trip." You get to see pelagic
birds close up, within 50-100 yds of the boat. You get multiple close looks
at albatrosses, fulmars, shearwaters, jaegers, etc. Sometimes it's
"bouncy," sometimes it's calm. You see species folks will never see from
land in a lifetime. Don't listen to what those other people say about being
"green." ;-)
Enjoy your seabirding!
Paul Sullivan
** I've made 7 trips to the coast this month, looking for Black-vented
Shearwaters. 3 overninghts. 10 days total. I've seen a modest number of
Sooty Shearwaters on 3 days, the rest of the time, none. This weekend I
went to Brookings and back, and missed the birds reported by observers from
Boiler Bay to Curry county.
I have managed to see:
Tropical Kingbird
Common Ground Dove
Brown Booby
Great Crested Flycatcher
Clay-colored Sparrow
Black-legged Kittiwake
White-tailed Kite
and Legions of Brown Pelicans and Heermann's Gulls
.. so it hasn't been all that bad. ;-)
