August

This image of a recently deceased juvenile Marbled Murrelet (Brachyramphus marmoratus) was found on Hope Island, Mason County, WA on August 15, 2015. Although it was sad to see this individual motionless on the wrack line & under the shoreline trees while taking a brake from paddling with my friend and our sons, it was encouraging to even observe a marbled murrelet in this area of the South Puget Sound at all! Ebird shows only a handful of records in the South Sound but there is another observation of a single murrelet a month after this one. Perhaps with a little luck and a lot of conservation work in another 50 years the two 4-year-olds on this trip will be paddling back to Hope island with their grand kids through rafts of murrelets, guillemots, grebes, and scoters. Photo, caption and flip-phone by F. Teal Waterstrat.