Think you've had a good seawatch? Hah! (1 Viewer)

Check out this report by Phil Pickering from Boiler Bay on the coast of Oregon, USA, yesterday....and DROOL.

7:00-3:30 (11/21):
partly clear with frequent fast moving squalls
becoming mostly clear by mid-afternoon, wind
W 15-25 gusting to 40 with squalls, swells 10+
everything moving south

3000+ Red-throated Loon
80000+ Pacific Loon (flight more notable for persistence
than density, generally 100-300/min for most of
duration with brief pulses to 1000/min)
1000+ Common Loon
30 Horned Grebe (S)
150 Red-necked Grebe (S)
50 Western Grebe
1 BLACK-FOOTED ALBATROSS (adequate look S 1.5 mile)
15000+ Northern Fulmar (visible movement during
entire duration, mostly 20-40/min. increasing to
100/min around squalls, 98% dark-end)
2 MOTTLED PETREL (obvious singles S both between
1/2-3/4 mile in direct sun, dorsal/ventral patterns,
compact size, energetic flight all well seen)
8 Buller's Shearwater
9 Pink-footed Shearwater
100+ Short-tailed Shearwater (assume low)
20000+ Sooty Shearwater (increasing afternoon, at times
funneling to 150/min)
350 Leach's Storm-Petrel (scattered singles with frequency
gradually increasing during afternoon)
500 Brown Pelican
30 Double-crested Cormorant
200 Brandt's Cormorant (S)
500 Pelagic Cormorant (S)
1600 Brant
15 Mallard
6 Northern Pintail
50 Green-winged Teal
2 scaup sp.
2 Harlequin Duck
100 Black Scoter
150 White-winged Scoter
800 Surf Scoter
1 Bufflehead
100 Red-breasted Merganser
1 Peregrine Falcon
600 Red Phalarope (relatively low density with
widely scattered flocks mostly of <10 birds)
2 Parasitic Jaeger
243 Pomarine Jaeger (majority moving in pairs,
groups to 7)
3 SOUTH POLAR SKUA (singles S all 1/2-1 mile)
500 Bonaparte's Gull
150 Mew Gull
6000 California Gull
1000 Herring Gull
20+ Thayer's Gull (assume low but hard to find
while sampling)
1000 Western Gull
800 Glaucous-winged Gull
500 Heermann's Gull
8000+ larus sp.
1000 Black-legged Kittiwake (about 75% juv. inc
numerous segretated flocks)
8000+ Common Murre
150 Pigeon Guillemot
80 Marbled Murrelet
900 Ancient Murrelet (steady groups to 18)
10 Cassin's Auklet
1 PARAKEET AUKLET (S 150 yards within the breakers,
good look at shape, intermediate size, white to chin)
300 Rhinoceros Auklet

My word!

Trying to picture what 300-1000 divers a minute would look like

How would you count that lot? I take it he had help!

Phil

wow! you just wouldn't ever go home with that much about.

They'll need a new tally counter now!!

RSI of the thumb

Bit of a poor show that they couldn't nail the ID of the 2 Scaup sp. It's not as if they had much else to look at!

Phil

Thats a very good day, even for Boiler Bay. Mottled Petrel and Parakeet Auklet are outstanding. I was only there for one day last November and it was an average day, but still the amount of stuff going past was literally unbelievable, squadrons of Loons & Shearwaters were streaming past every minute. Its odd because the watchpoint doesn't even stick out very much.

Its about 5 mile S of Lincoln City, Oregon if you fancy it.

I'll be there next September!

Has there ever been a better seawatch for number and range of species?

BTW, I did a 40 minute seawatch from Peel (IOM) the previous afternoon and saw 2 Northern Fulmars!

80,000 Pacific Loon... Jaw dropping. That would be a story for the table let alone all the other stuff.

This is about 4 birds a second for 10 hours? It would simply turn me into a jibbering wreck.

Archie Opteryx said:

This is about 4 birds a second for 10 hours? It would simply turn me into a jibbering wreck.

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Yes, thinking about the logistics of recording such a passage, how many people were doing the seawatch?

You'd have to do time counts on different species and estimate.... hoping that an albatrosss didn't interrupt you!

Jane Turner said:

You'd have to do time counts on different species and estimate.... hoping that an albatrosss didn't interrupt you!

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On occasion, when the right combination of circumstances (wind, weather, tide, blocking weather system), the numbers of birds in places along this coast can be immense. Bowerman's Basin in the north of Grays Harbor WA (it lies between a small airfield and the north shore; Google it) is about the last place that a high spring tide reaches, Grays Harbor comprising vast mud flats. Shorebirds pressed up by the tide against the head of the basin can number in the millions, one of the most spectacular events I've ever witnessed (1992, I seem to remember). Spring birding along this coast and up into the Cascades can be very rewarding.
MJB:t:

This is awesome! What a count. Many of these birds would be firsts for me. I would love to experience this in the future.

MJB said:

On occasion, when the right combination of circumstances (wind, weather, tide, blocking weather system), the numbers of birds in places along this coast can be immense. Bowerman's Basin in the north of Grays Harbor WA (it lies between a small airfield and the north shore; Google it) is about the last place that a high spring tide reaches, Grays Harbor comprising vast mud flats. Shorebirds pressed up by the tide against the head of the basin can number in the millions, one of the most spectacular events I've ever witnessed (1992, I seem to remember). Spring birding along this coast and up into the Cascades can be very rewarding.
MJB:t:

Click to expand...

Talking of which, another figure which I can't get out of my head is 94,600. That was the count of Wilson's Phalaropes at Lake Abert, also in Oregon, back in August this year. This kind of stuff is one of my few compensations for having family so far away out there!

awesome. it's a good time on land (also) for big migrations south (to where I live). do you have any other observations?

Um, that is a heck of a lot of birds. Definite stuff of dreams and should win the award for the most drool provoking day of birding in 2012! Would be a bit of a stimulus overload but sounds like Boiler Bay, Oregon is the place to be for November birding. I mean, holy cosmic "jodedor de la mente"!