Weather: After yesterday’s brief reprieve, rainy weather returned. Winds were mostly calm around campus and on the water in Crescent Bay.
Birds: I was able to get out on the water a couple of times to get a closer look at the storm-petrels. This morning around 8am, the birds seemed to all be out in Crescent Bay. Around noon, they were scattered from the Sealing Cove cleaning station to the middle of Crescent Bay. There were at least a couple of dozen, with all the ones I saw Fork-tailed Storm-petrels. Kitty LaBounty told me that she thought she saw a Leach’s Storm-petrel earlier in the day.
On the second trip out there was a Sharp-shinned Hawk on Alice Island. First it chased Kingfisher, then we saw it go after a storm-petrel. It was not successful in either case, but it did fly by the boat pretty close. Unfortunately the light was not so great for photographing it, but I did get a few pictures.
There was a Great Blue Heron on the beach near the entrance to Sealing Cove. Later in the day I saw on one the Crescent Harbor Breakwater.
I saw at least one Golden-crowned Sparrow in the neighborhood today. There seem to be more Golden-crowneds around this year than there have been in the last couple of years.
Hundreds of storm petrels between breakwater at N. end of channel and Parker Islands on Sunday, 10/1/06