[obol] [Fwd: Clatsop Beaches, Clatsop County, Oregon on February 01, 2007]

[David Bailey]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	Clatsop Beaches, Clatsop County, Oregon on February 01, 2007
Date: 	Fri, 02 Feb 2007 08:25:17 GMT
From: 	baileydc at pdx.edu
To: 	baileydc at pdx.edu



This report was mailed for David C. Bailey by http://birdnotes.net

Date: February 1, 2007
Location: Clatsop Beaches, Clatsop County, Oregon

Percentage of sky covered by clouds: 0%
Precipitation: none

I drove the high wet wrack line from the auto access at Sunset Beach
to the Peter Iredale shipwreck at Fort Stevens State Park and then
turn back south and continued along the wrack line all the way to the
Gearhart auto access. I did not find any obvious newly tide cast
birds, all appeared to have been around a week or two. Otherwise
there was much small debris and litter in the wrack line.

Birds seen (in taxonomic order):

White-winged Scoter (Melanitta fusca)                   1 [1] 
Western Grebe (Aechmophorus occidentalis)               1
Glaucous-winged Gull (Larus glaucescens)                1 [2] 
Unidentified gull (Larus sp.)                           1 [3] 
Common Murre (Uria aalge)                               1
Horned Puffin (Fratercula corniculata)                  2 [4] 

Footnotes:

[1]  White-winged Scoter: headless adult male by jet black wing
     plumage.
[2]  Glaucous-winged Gull: adult
[3]  Unidentified gull: immature medium to large gull (first winter
     plumage)that I did not have the time to identify to species.
[4]  Horned Puffin: One whole bird with hole pecked in cranium
     (corvid?), narrow bill indicated that this individual was a
     juvenile. The white underparts readily distinguished it from
     Tufted Puffin immature, as did the red in the bill color. I
     first thought that I come upon a Rinoceros Auklet, but on closer
     inspection the bill was just to long and thick, and the plumage
     was black and white with a gray face.
     
     The second specimen included only the pectoral girdle including
     the wings. These wings looked exactly the same in all respects
     to the whole specimen, as I brought them both together to
     compare directly. This makes a total of three beach-cast HORNED
     PUFFINS this winter on the North Coast of Oregon to my
     knowledge. I presume, based on the older condition of the two
     specimens found today, that these birds were deposited at about
     the same time and due to the same storm events that resulted in
     the adult specimen washing up at the Seaside Cove a few weeks
     ago.

Total number of species seen: 6