Washington Pelagic

September 24

I slept in until seven, and started heating water for oatmeal on my camp stove. I've been so busy, even a real breakfast has been rare. As the oatmeal was setting, I packed up my tent. After eating, a quick restroom stop to wash my face & brush my teeth, and I was on the road again. 

Four hours later, I was at Twin Harbors State Park, setting up camp just after 11 am. 

Words can barely describe how nice it felt to have some down time to just decompress, relax, and rehash my plan for the rest of this western trip, now that the plans had been scrambled by my great luck on the Half Moon Bay boat. I      drove into Westport to check out the parking and dock situation for the following morning - I'd be finding it in the dark. I sporadically bought an ice cream cone - cranberry cheesecake - as I was walking by. I did a little scanning of the bay for the off chance of a very early Ancient Murrelet - a bird I'd completely forgotten about on my February trip up the California coast. After a few hours, I ordered fish & chips, choosing Rockfish - the "local favorite" as listed on the menu. Fresh caught fish right on the ocean can't get much better. 

Eventually I drove the handful of miles back to my campsite, and was in bed as the sun was setting. 

September 25 

A 5:15 alarm got me out of my campground by 5:45, and parked and at the dock just after 6:00. It was 6:08 - I saw the boat. Where were the people? We were set to depart by 6:30, and I was asked to get to the dock by 6:15. After a bit of momentary panic that maybe the trip was cancelled (I knew there was bad weather coming tomorrow and they'd already cancelled tomorrow's trip), I realized there was, indeed, one or two people already on the boat, and I was just on the early side, apparently. Trip protocols and safety precautions were gone over; we waited for one late arrival, and were on our way by 6:45. 

It's interesting to see the way birds behave in different areas, and therefore the differing ways that the pelagic trips operate. In Half Moon Bay, we'd had a raft of about 1700 storm-petrels. On the east coast, storm-petrels will follow along in the slick right behind the back of the boat, which doesn't happen in the Pacific. Here in Westport, we'd drive from fishing boat to fishing boat, assessing the giant mass of seabirds and gulls that were following these boats all morning. 

There were skeins and skeins of Short-tailed Shearwaters! 

In a typical year, the work is to pick the Short-tailed out of the flocks of Sooties. This year, it was opposite. There were so many Short-taileds, that it was difficult to pull a few Sooty Shearwaters out from amongst them. Crazy!

At the third boat we checked out, a Flesh-footed Shearwater flew up the port side of the boat, with brief but good looks of this dark bird, with an all pink bill. It was just as described to me - a bird that superficially looks like a Sooty Shearwater, but flies like a Pink-footed Shearwater. 

I'd already picked up Fork-tailed Storm-Petrel in California, which was one of my two intended targets for Washington (Short-tailed Shearwater was the other). Short-tailed was the bird I'd needed to drive the 13 hours each way for. It was the Flesh-footed Shearwater that officially made it feel like it was worth the trip! 

Much later in the day, a super early Black-legged Kittiwake was a surprise new year bird for me. I'd mostly let my guard down, relaxing once I thought the only remaining birds I could get would be one of the rarer albatrosses - Laysan or Short-tailed. I quickly snapped to attention when someone said "kittiwake"- it sat on the water a bit and gave great looks before flying off into the blue ocean abyss. 

We got off the boat, and I made my way to Cannon Beach, Oregon, for the night. I'll have the next five days to meander my way down the coast before going for Island Scrub-Jay on October 1st, followed by a Ventura, California on October 2nd. I'm looking forward to a bit of down time, to be honest! 

Year List: 697