May 17, 2004
Weekend in Seattle
Last weekend saw me jetting off to Seattle to meet up with Andrew (another Brit abroad - he lives and works in Toronto). On Saturday, we visited the sights, shopped, ate lots and drank expensive wine . On Sunday we spent most of the day on a boat trip to the San Juan islands, seeing some great wildlife. I'll focus on the wildlife in this entry, but for the occasional non-birder who stumbles across this site, I've posted some pretty scenery pictures in the extension to this entry (click on the 'read more' link below).
The Victoria Clipper company runs daily ferries between Seattle and Friday Harbor, San Juan. The price of the round trip includes a 2.5 hour cruise around the islands in search of Orcas and other marine life. Boarding began at the unearthly hour of 6:45am - the pain of this was lessened by the appearance of this adult Bald Eagle at the docks.
The bird was repeatedly mobbed by what I believe to be Northwestern Crows (they certainly had deeper calls than my local American Crows). After about 15 minutes of repeated dive-bombing, the eagle decided enough was enough and scarpered.
Within 10 minutes of departure, the first birds started to appear - a winter plumaged Pacific Loon, and small flock of Western Grebes and my life Rhinoceros Auklets! Rhinos turned out to be one of the commonest birds of the trip, though I only managed this blurry flight shot (in true birders' tradition, I'll give an excuse for the poor quality of this shot - I was on a moving boat, holding my camera up to my bins in a stiff wind!).
We were pleasantly surprised to encounter these Gray Whales, which spouted repeatedly and even raised their tails out of the water (second photo courtesy of Andrew).
Closer to the San Juans, Pigeon Guillemots began to outnumber the Rhinos, while other birds encountered included Common Murre, Surf and Black Scoter, Caspian Tern and two breeding-plumaged Pacific Loons. I'm pretty sure I saw Thayer's Gulls too, though many (most?) of the gulls I encountered were hybrid Western x Glaucous-winged.
The tour around the San Juans unfortunately failed to find any Orcas, but we did find a small group of Dall's Porpoises, a single Steller's Sealion, a pair of Black Oystercatchers, a small jellyfish sp. and several Harbor Seals (the picture below was Andrew's first attempt at 'digibinning'). Bald Eagles were all over the place up here.
A brief stop at Friday Harbor provided a good excuse to chow down some Mexican food, where this Western Forktail was photographed.
We also came across a single Rufous Hummingbird and some more Northwestern Crows. The trip home was less eventful, save for more great views of Rhinos and a few Sealions. This cruise is well worth doing if you're in Seattle, and quite entertaining for non-birders too!
Here's a selection of scenic photos taken around Seattle. The weather on Saturday was pretty dismal (though typical for Seattle I hear), so I didn't take many photos during the day. Here's one of me at the top of the Space Needle.
In the evening we headed back up the Space Needle to obtain panoramic views of the skyscrapers:
This neon carwash sign caught my eye:
The weather didn't start out great on Sunday either, but had greatly improved by the time we returned to Seattle - compare these shots of the skyline taken on the outward and return ferry journeys.
The view from Friday Harbor:
Back in Seattle, the evening light illuminates the skyscrapers:
On the plane ride home, I managed a photo of this impressive snow-cone:
