I had a great 2-day 67th birthday birding experience. On my birthday I had planned to head to the coast about 12:45 PM when Paul Baerny was meeting me at my house, and we were to head toward Westport with a stop to pick up Ken Brown at McCleary. About 11 AM the GroupMe Pierce County Mafia group started going wild. It began with Will Brooks telling us he had a Long-tailed Jaeger at Dune Peninsula, only 2 miles from home. I waffled about going, as I’d seen this species just a few days ago also with Will at Dunes, but decided to make a quick dash down for the bird.
On arrival there Bruce, Marcus, and Heather were already there, and in addition to the STJA had Common Terns. After some looking I managed to see the 3 COTE standing on a long in the distance. Then Heather spotted a dark shearwater making its way towards us coming down the passage between Dash Point and Vashon. We all got on it and followed it for a long time as it flew towards us and finally all the way across in front of Vashon and off towards the narrows. It was dark, minimal if any white/silver wing linings, seemed to have a small bill and Will and Charlie (up above on the gravel parking lot) confidently called it a STSH. County lifer for all! I had to leave for the coast trip, but two more STSH made a similar flight in the next couple of hours.
I got home, had lunch, and then Paul and I headed west, picked up Ken, and went first to Westport. A few godwits were at their roost on the jetty by the marina entrance, but not the desired Bar-tailed Godwit, just maybe 110 Marbled Godwits. We went over the marina dock area, managed two Wandering Tattlers on the groin rocks (FOY for Ken) and then walked out the docks to the bridge area where most of the godwits were roosting on the sandy beach right below us. This was maybe the closest look I’ve had at a BTGO, one worn adult with the large flock of MAGOs, as well as one Whimbrel and one Willet.
After a not-so-great vegetarian fajita dinner (frozen veges) we headed to Bottle Beach for high tide. Lots of Black-bellied and Semipalmated Plovers, peeps and not much more really there. A nice sunset though.
We met at the boat at 6 AM Sept 3, and headed to sea in a pretty dense fog that lasted until about noon, making seeing much difficult. A FOY Pomarine Jaeger was maybe the best bird of the morning trip out. We did manage a shrimp boat with a nice flock of birds headed out, but photo ops were limited by fog. We kept going out to the continental shelf, and set up the least productive slick I’ve ever witnessed. For a half hour birds just didn’t come to the fish oil and beef suet slick at all. A Long-tailed Jaeger did fly past, for the only one of the trip, but really slow.
On the ride back in we found the same shrimper, after the sun came out and the fog lifted. It was really great, with tons of birds. See the photo at the top of this post for an idea of the numbers. Here are some photos of some of them.
We continued to port, seeing lots of Common Murre, several Cassin’s Aucklets and lots more Short-tailed and Sooty Shearwaters on the way. It was a remarkable trip for many reasons. The biggest was that Brian Pendleton was onboard. Brian arranged this trip to allow him to get to sea this year. Brian is a very talented birder, but has been living with a form of ALS for years. At this time he is restricted to a wheelchair, and is unable to hold optics at all. In spite of this he managed to get on every species we saw bare-eyed, and inspired everyone aboard with his tenacity, talent and spirit.
Short-tailed shearwaters were also remarkable in their huge numbers. Once into deeper water they far outnumbered Sooty Shearwaters, and gave us great opportunities to compare these two very similar species.
Overall a great birding start to my 68th trip around the sun.