August 12 Pelagic -- 2 albatross and 5 shearwater species!

What a way to begin our fall season!  Our 8 hour pelagic out of Newport encountered good weather and ocean conditions and 1000's of birds. As we typically do, we slowly birded the bay after leaving the dock, then turned south looking for Marbled Murrelets.  The murrelets were present, but a bit difficult to see, although good numbers of harbor porpoise and two gray whales, as well as our first Pink-footed and Buller's Shearwaters, did a lot to make up for this.  We headed offshore, finding flocks of phalarope (mostly Red) and other species on the way.  Our skipper, Dave DeBelloy of the Enterprise (Newport Tradewinds) find us draggers and shrimpers offshore, and we had an incredible day with over 700 Black-footed Albatross, at least 2 Laysans, Northern Fulmar (many, unusual for August),  Fork-tailed Storm-Petrels (100's), 1South Polar Skua, Pomarine and Long-tailed Jaegers, Sabine's Gulls, Rhinoceros and Cassin's (few) Auklets and the following shearwaters made our day: Sooty, Pink-footed, Buller's, Flesh-footed (1, not seen by all) and Short-tailed (4).  This was an outstanding day, and we had a boat full of happy passengers.