There is something almost esoteric about sea birding; learning to spot birds that may only be dots on the horizon.  But as a novice birder, I learn the basics of distinguishing the different birds quickly.  All but a few us of have experience with pelagic birding, and every one of them are quick to help us novices make sense of all the different species.  Within a few hours, I have no problem distinguishing a Cassin's Auklet ("looks like a potato being chucked through the air") versus a Rhinoceros Auklet ("looks kinda like a flying football"). 

But the wildlife en route to the Perpetua Sea Bank is more than just the forty species of birds we see.  We see dozens of blue sharks moving just underneath the surface.  Sometimes, the charter boat sails right next to them, and we can watch their graceful movement close-up.  We see other sharks, too - Salmon Sharks, Soupfin Sharks, Mako Sharks.

Nearly everybody aboard is surprised by a Humpback Whale, which surfaces fifty yards from the boat. Almost at the same time, one of the birding guides, Tim Shelmerdine, notices a giant animal lying on the water.  A whale so large that the guide announces he just saw a probable juvenile Blue Whale; the largest animal on Earth.

We see different species of dolphin, Elephant Seals, Albacore Tuna, the bizarre and gigantic Ocean Sunfish, which resembles the head of a fish with a tail, and thousands of jellyfish, in different colors and shapes.  The awe of my first albatross extends to the entire sea.  The surface of the deep ocean is not just an empty canvas of blue on blue. It's alive.

I am a novice birder.  How I decided to get on this boat relates back to an event from February 2009, in which an unusual gull – the Slaty-backed Gull - was spotted in downtown Portland.  The gull is actually quite common, but in Asia.  As happens from time to time with some Asian bird species, this gull migrated the wrong way.  Instead of heading south along the east coast of Asia, this gull crossed the Aleutian Islands and followed the coast of Alaska, British Columbia, Washington and finally ended up in Portland.  By showing up floating in the Willamette one day, the bird presented a challenge to anybody who kept a life list - if you can spot it, you can 'collect' a rare sighting of a bird that rarely shows up in North America.