Friday, June 7, 2013

LEAST AUKLET and more off BC!

From Barbara Carlson:

[Reporting for Paul Lehman]

Yesterday, 6 June, Paul Lehman and Larry Peavler were cruising south in BC waters on their way back to San Francisco. They saw an adult LEAST AUKLET paralleling the boat for three minutes! It was flying with Cassin's Auklets. This was 97 km northwest of the northwest tip of Vancouver Island.

They also saw an adult Thick-billed Murre approximately 55 km east of the south end of the Queen Charlotte Islands. Late in the day, they had a MANX SHEARWATER behind a trawler approximately 50 km west off central Vancouver Island.

Earlier in the day, traveling through Hecate Strait, they saw a mass of dark shearwaters, some 80,000 Sooty/Short-tailed Shearwaters. A large number of these were molting Short-tailed, which is unusual for BC waters at this time of year.

Throughout the day, large numbers of Leach's Storm-Petrels (2,600) were seen. Also were some 700 Fork-tailed Storm-Petrels, 700 Ancient Murrelets, and 11,000 Cassin Auklets. There were 180 total number of Black-footed Albatross, with 125 of these being behind the same trawler where they beheld the Manx Shearwater.

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