Until early afternoon, I thought I was going to have to write about how uneventful today was. There were lots of Fork-tailed Storm-Petrels and Laysan Albatrosses and alcids, but nothing all that remarkable. But then Kirk spotted a Mottled Petrel flying past on the starboard side, but he was the only one to see it. I always choose the wrong side of the boat, so of course, I was on the port side at the time.
A little while later, a small pod of Orca along with many albatrosses were ahead of us. As we approached, an adult Short-tailed Albatross suddenly appeared on our port side (and yes, I was sitting on the starboard side). It flew ahead of us but then sat on the water. It then started flying again and we lost it, but then I started chumming. Soon we had about 20 Laysans and one Black-footed behind the boat. Then Rich spotted the Short-tailed coming into the ship’s wake. Some of us had all three species in one binocular field of view. The Short-tailed never came close enough to grab some chum, but it did follow the boat for about 10 minutes. It was certainly the bird of the day.