Pelagic Birding Trip

BirdNote^®

A Pelagic Trip: Birding on the Open Ocean

Written by Bob Sundstrom

This is BirdNote!
Birdwatching can be a walk in the park [Sound of boots on a path; American Robin gentle song]. But if you want to see an albatross, [Black-footed Albatross call], you’ll have to go offshore. Welcome aboard!
We embark from Westport Harbor this fine August morning, a crimson sunrise at our stern. [Sound of boat under way] Precision flights of Brown Pelicans and myriad gulls and cormorants throng the mouth of Grays Harbor. [Gulls calling] But our goal lies west: the edge of the Continental Shelf, 35 nautical miles away.
Now out of sight of land, we enter oceanic habitats: the pelagic realm. We pass among thousands of shearwaters, crow-sized seabirds gliding over the ocean on long slender wings. All are migrating south to nest near New Zealand, in the austral summer. [Sounds of Sooty Shearwaters]
Someone shouts “Albatross!” and an immense, dark bird arcs up the boat’s wake, on the slender crescent of a 7-foot wingspan: a Black-footed Albatross.
It’s a unique realm of wildlife out here. Predatory jaegers and skuas, tiny phalaropes and storm-petrels, fulmars and other birds rarely or never seen from land, plus occasional whales, sharks, and seals.
It’s an amazing bird spectacle hard to imagine when looking out to sea from shore. [Sound of boat under way]
BirdNote writers include Bob Sundstrom, Todd Peterson, Dennis Paulson, and Ellen Blackstone. I’m Frank Corrado.
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Bird audio provided by The Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. American Robin song recorded by W.L. Hershberger.  Black-footed Albatross call recorded by W.V. Ward.  Glaucous-winged Gull calls recorded by A.A. Allen.  Sooty Shearwater calls recorded by M.A. Rumboll.
Ambient recordings by Kessler Productions.
Footsteps recorded by C Peterson.
Producer: John Kessler
Executive Producer: Chris Peterson
© 2010 Tune In to Nature.org    August 2010

ID# 081407pelagicKPLU pelagic-01