Life on the Outer Coast

This week commutes should have a couple of rows for marine mammals. Two mornings (3/23 and 3/24) there were humpback whales in Crescent bay near Turning Island. Driving home on the 24th there were several whales breaching off Whale Park. Just happened to notice one huge splash, so stopped and watched for a short time. Through Wednesday, there were also small groups of sea lions in Crescent bay. The marine mammals seem to have disappeared from the bay on Friday and Saturday.
It was spring break, so I made a few additional trips to get Ian to track practice. Most afternoons and evenings, I saw a blue heron near the Galankin dock, a pair of marbled murrelets and a Horned grebe near the Galankin dock. Did watch a male kingfisher swoop from the tourist ramp under the pier, into the water and fly up on the ladder down from the pier.

	3/23	3/24	3/25	3/26	3/27	3/28
Horned Grebe		1				1
Pelagic Cormorant	2	2	2	2	2	3
Double-crested Cormorant						1
Mallards	2	2	3	2		4
Surf Scoter	5	7	5	6	15	11
Barrow's Goldeneye	6					4
Bufflehead						1
Common Merganser	8		14	5	10	8
Mew Gull		6			4
Thayer's Gull		1		1		1
Glaucous-winged gull	10	8		3	8
Gull spp		4			20	6
Common Murre	1					5
Marbled Murrelet						5
Bald Eagle				1
Raven	1
Weather		Snow, west steep chop	ripples	snow, se small chop		sunny, calmish
time	8am	8am	8am	8am	8am	9:30

Still have red polls on the island, as well as nuthatches. I'm kind of hopeful that the nuthatches will stick around this summer.