Last Post About Dead Birds

OK. No more. Maybe some links to scientific conclusions. (Current thinking: a strong non-toxic algae bloom that creates a foam in active waters destroys the waterproofing of the birds who are in molt who therefore can not simply fly away to somewhere more congenial because they have no flight feathers. No longer protected from the cold waters, they die of hypothermia. The scoters are in molt. Bye bye scoters.)

My COASST mentor says my last-month bird (1) was not a common murre but a rhinoceros auklet. I did wonder, when I saw how much bigger the murre was that JL and I identified last Monday, and plainly different markings. OK, my first bird, the 'feather-duster corpse', was a rhinoceros auklet. And, she says, the mammal that weekend was indeed a harbor porpoise.