And...I'm back!

Can you believe it? I can't...it seems like it went by so fast. I'm a bit disappointed, to be honest. I generally relish going to sea so that I can "tune out" and disconnect for awhile - catch up on books I've been meaning to read, write in my journal, reflect on life... I did get some of this accomplished, but I think the fact that the cruise was a mere 3 weeks prevented me from fully embracing this - oh and the fact that we had virtually 24-hr access to the internet! D'Oh! But this did keep the "inbox" from overflowing...

Anyhoo, I am now back on dry land. Well, I should just say land. Arguable about it's dryness (although today was a very nice sunny day on the Oregon coast!).

The cruise was very successful for all - we had numerous sightings of killer whales! Primarily along the Washington coast, but we did venture south into Oregon waters for a bit, too. And to top it off, the mammal scientists were able to locate a number of transient (mammal-eating) killer whales, in addition to the resident (salmon-eating) whales. We even got to see a pod of transients kill a sea lion! At one point the sea lion was hiding under the stern of our ship!

But, I digress. As I am now a seabird biologist, I must focus on the success of this aspect of the cruise. And success, we had! I had a great team of birders with me - Ryan and Terry are true birders (I'm a mere mortal) and I learned a lot from them. Ryan, at the tender age of 24, has virtually memorized the Sibley Guide to Birds - a feat I doubt I'll ever master - even if required in some intro to birds class I never took.

Anyhoo, with these two birders, our eagle eyes spotted some veeery interesting and rare birds on the survey transects. In particular, over 100 Parakeet Auklets! These small alcids (see link) are not very common at all in Washington waters, so to see so many was quite remarkable. Remarkable enough that I am now tasked (with some colleagues) with writing a scientific paper about our sightings. And the cool thing is that not much is known about these birds after they disperse from their breeding colonies in Alaska. We have a whole suite of oceanographic data (sea-surface temperature, salinity, depth, prey) to examine and see if there are any correlations to where we saw the birds. Other rare birds we saw include Manx Shearwater, Tufted and Horned Puffins, Northern Fulmars (my personal fav!), and the ubiquitous Common Murre and Sooty Shearwater.

I'm now back on terra firma, prepping for a busy field season messing about in boats!

Click here for a link to see the highlights from PODS 2009...