Out on Resurrection Bay and Beyond

Since our boat didn't leave until 9:00am, we had time to walk around the area near our motel to see if we could encounter a White-winged Crossbill.  We didn't, but we did enjoy a decent sit-down hot breakfast.  There were about 70 passengers on the boat, but the capacity was a lot higher, so we had plenty of room.  Once underway the skipper asked if anyone had any special birds they were looking for and I told him about the two murrelets.  He said he'd try to make it work for us.  We did see Doll's Porpoises, Humpback Whales, Orcas, Steller's Sea Lions, Harbor Seals and lots of glaciers (web photo).  The captain, named Bob, kept us informed about what we were seeing and a lot of natural history to go with it.  He had a good approach to seeing but not harassing the wildlife.  When we got into Northwestern Fjord we did see an Ancient Murrelet and later I got a Kittlitz's Murrelet, separating it from the similar Marbled Murrelets which we also saw.  All day long Horned and Tufted Puffins were in view as well as Common Murres and a few Rhinoceros Auklets.  When we got back to shore we both felt it had been a good trip.  We didn't encounter much traffic on our way back to Anchorage.  We dropped our stuff off at the Puffin Inn and John took the rental car back to the airport and the motel shuttle back.  We repacked our stuff for the flight tomorrow.  The two new birds raised the year's list to 693.