July 23, 2005: Westport, Washington Pelagic Bird Trip, Mount Rainier

Almost all of today was spent on a pelagic birding trip, heading out 50 miles off shore into the Pacific Ocean into the Gray's Canyon area. This area is a great spot for sea birding.

Our boat was chartered by Westport Seabirds Pelagic Birding. They do several trips throughoug the year for the purpose of locating offshore birds. The group was excellent, and highly reccomended. We saw lots of things (see the official list on their site for 7/23/05), but all the BLACK FOOTED ALBATROSS up close had to have been a highlight!

At one point, we came up near the "Pacific Dove", a fishing vessel based in Westport. Lots of cool birds were hanging around the boat looking for chum, including BLACK-FOOTED ALBATROSS, NORTHERN FULMAR, TUFTED PUFFIN, WESTERN GULLS, and more.

This trip took all day, with a 5:30AM departure, and getting back into harbor around 4:30PM. It is a rough trip, so bring motion sickness medicine if you are prone to that! It is very much worth it though to see the cool birds!

After a quick seafood meal in Westport, we headed east, to Mount Rainier National Park. We got there late, around 8PM, so we did not have much time, other than to drive around the park quickly, and head into Seattle. This was necessary because we had a red-eye out of Sea-Tac Airport, leaving at 12:15AM

SEABIRD AND OTHER WILDLIFE PHOTOS FROM THE PELAGIC TRIP:

California Gull Humpback Whales Pacific White-Sided Dolphin Above 2: Leach's Storm Petrel

Above 2: Sooty Shearwaters

Above 2: Pink-Footed Shearwaters

Common Murres

The birds below were seen around the "Pacific Dove" fishing boat:

Tufted Puffin

Above 3: Northern Fulmar

Above 3: Black-Footed Albatross
Arriving back in Westport, we found these Brown Pelicans

Mount Rainier Photos: