Report by Bruce LaBar
With weather reports of rain and wind, we gathered at the Monte Carlo at 0630 with a beautiful sunrise, full moon still visable, no rain and no wind. This trip was our annual Vent tour group led by Bob Sundstrom. The rest of the day remained wonderful with calm seas and partly cloudy skies. Going out we encountered lots of Common Murres, Sooty Shearwaters and Pink-footed Shearwaters. There were no fishing boats on our transect, so our numbers were quite low until we stopped at our chum spot about 35 miles out. Because we were the only boat near-by we had good numbers of Black-footed Albatross, several Fork-tailed Storm-Petrels, excellent views of Long-tailed, Pomarine and Parasitic Jaegers. Other highlights were: South Polar Skua, one Buller's Shearwater, three Tufted Puffins and a close view of a Red Phalarope. As we were coming back with the jetty and land visable, we had hundreds of shearwaters, gulls and other sea birds on the water and forging for bait fish. While scanning these birds and trying to make sense of the numbers, a large black mantled, white headed bird crossed my view. I was dumb founded that this bird was so close to shore. Of course, this was a Laysan Albatross and by checking photos by Scott Mills a different one then on Aug.9th. Everyone, I believe would call this the bird of the trip.