They hadn't. I had somehow missed them, but they were still there.

And the word came back to me...go at high tide.

So I quickly checked the tides and found out that the high high tide (we get two high tides, a low one and a high one) would be around 6:30pm on Tuesday. It had been low tide when I had gone on Monday. Maybe this accounted for my aukletlessness.

6:30pm was conveniently a little bit after work, so around 4:30 I left work and headed for "Point Bob" again. There was a different border guard there, but my U.S. passport and birdwatching story got me in with no trouble. I got to the park around 5:30, got a soda water from the snack bar there, and went to the beach at Lighthouse Park.

Standing right in front of the parking lot, every now and then I would see a bird that I thought might be a Rhino, but it would quickly dive. Maybe it was the Harlequin Ducks again. I tried unsuccessfully to catch one of these guys with my camera for about thirty minutes.

I decide to head down the rocky beach, and after about a five-minute walk from where I started, there is the lighthouse after which the park is named, and the shore turns from southward to eastward. Right there, to the south of the point, about 30 to 40 meters out, there were Rhinos! They were mixed in with seagulls, but they were definitely Rhinocerous Auklets...all the field marks were visible. Here's one of the blighters, behind the pack of gulls on the right.

The Rhinos were in better shape, though. Auklets can dive and swim underwater. They would just follow the fish, even when the fish were underwater. The problem is that the Rhinos didn't stay on the surface long, because dinner wasn't on the surface. Here's one guy I did catch sitting still on the surface, though.

Very rarely did I hear them make any calls, but they did make a few.

With all that diving down after fish, it's not a surprise that some of them came up with fish. The etiquette of fish holding seemed well-established in Rhinos. Normally, one should hold a fish by keeping its head in your bill, like this fellow.

There were the few oddballs, holding fish by the middle.

But if you have a lot of fish, it's okay to hold them whichever way you want. It seems to be more important to hold the fish than to be stylish in so doing.

I saw loads of Rhinos surface with many fish in mouth. The odd thing was that they didn't eat them before diving back down after more. I don't think that they were fishing in order to feed young; I didn't see any young anywhere.

The Rhinos had to be careful where they came up. I saw one or two of them lose a fish to a thieving seagull.

On those three fish-holding shots, it's pretty easy to see the little upwards protuberance on the bill that gives the Rhino its name.

The flight of the Rhinos was interesting. To get started, they run along the water.

Once airborne, they look fairly streamlined (if a bit rotund).

Landing consists of a splayed position to get a stall at the right moment. Try not to run into the gulls.

And it is also possible to fly and land with fish in the mouth.

Notice that that one uses the correct method--he's holding two fish, by their heads. His Rhino horn is also lit up, almost looking like an extension of the fish.

I got to watch the Rhinos and Gulls for a good two and a half to three hours. The Rhinos never got closer to shore than about 20 meters, though. That's good enough for me to get recognizable photos, but not close enough for a good close up of one.

Several other species joined in the feeding. There were Harlequin Ducks, and the occasional Pelagic Cormorant, like this one.

I like watching the cormorants dive, because their whole body seems to come up out of the water and follow their long neck into the water. One day I'll catch some good shots of cormorants diving.

There was also a seal that was hanging about...I'd see him from time to time.

Anyhow, it had been a productive shoot, and I was happy to have gotten to spend so much time watching the feeding spectacle. The photos had been difficult to get, mainly because the distance necessitated me using a teleconverter, which meant manual focus and less light. (Less light leads to noisier or more blurry photos.) However, I am satisfied with having gotten the shots I did get. Maybe next time I'm shooting offshore subjects I'll bring my drysuit or hip waders and wade in to get closer to the subjects...I just would have to hope for no surf and a gentle ocean bottom.

(I'm not ready to go to that extreme yet, but I'm getting there...)

Your wayward field ornithologist,
Tom