A beautiful day to see a Horned Puffin-Brown Pelican-Humpback Whale, and more for two birding tours and a whale watching tour in the middle. We saw so many species today including Black Oystercatcher, Rhinoceros Auklet, Pacific Murre, Pigeon Guilimott, Glaucous Gull chicks, Tufted Puffin, a rare Horned Puffin, and for us a rare Brown Pelican.
For the middle tour with whales, we saw a pair of humpbacks for a while and heard a pod of Orca was preparing to cross over into USA waters. We headed that way only to learn they took a right-hand turn and stayed deep into Canadian waters. Until the politicians quit making this a political game we are not allowed into Canadian waters. All the years we have been doing this, I have never heard of an instance where one of our vessels has had to touch foreign soil. So the fear that we will spread a virus when we are miles at sea is absurd.
I stopped by to check on my little Oystercatcher chick and it is doing well. A few weeks ago a Peregrine Falcon got one of the chicks so now there is only the one but it is doing fine. While with the puffins I observed a pair tapping their beaks against each other. It seemed to be an act of affection. One was larger than the other so I am assuming they were a mated pair. A couple weeks ago I witnessed a mating ritual and the male mounting the female afterward.
It was amazing to see the Horned Puffin again and all the other beautiful birds of the Salish Sea.
Check out some of my other photoblog pages at Whale Tales.
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