On June 22nd, five others and I headed out from the Anacortes Marina aboard the 20' HughesCraft operated by the Salish Sea School <https://www.thesalishseaschool.org/.> The goal was to find, count, and record the Tufted Puffins on and around Smith Island. We ended up finding about a dozen.
This was my first time seeing the Tufted Puffin decoys up on the ridge just above the nesting holes. There were about eight that I could see. A couple of times we watched a puffin come and land near the decoys.
Partway into the puffin observations, I saw a different-looking puffin fly from the water up into a burrow on the island. With a camera photo zoomed in, we could see it was a Horned Puffin. It wasn't there long. If took off and headed straight at us and over us. It then turned a bit and landed in the water a bit just out from the kelp bed. We looked for quite some time, but never saw it again.
Also unusual were two Brown Pelicans and a lone female Long-tailed Duck on or near the island.
Other great viewings were a Sea Otter eating, and an Orca on the way back.
All in all, it was a great day to be out on the water.
