Eight-legged Groove Machine

Pieces of Eight...

After yesterday's chat casing fun in the sun, I opted to stay local this evening at went for a spot of post-work seawatching.
The wind had picked up a fair bit today, but by the time I arrived at Clover Point it was blowing in what seemed to be a pretty unproductive direction.
I stuck it out for an hour but it didn't seem very promising. Even rhinoceros auklets were thin on the ground and I only picked up a single pigeon guilllemot.
The glaucous-winged and California gulls were being bounced around from one roost to the other by boisterous people, and numbers were fairly low even off shore.

A young bald eagle (pictured) was dining on the washed up carcass of an octopus, before being discovered by gawping hordes who soon flushed it.
As you can see from the photo, it was a formidable beast (I'm talking about the octopus) and must have been an impressive sight when intact! For scale, I've placed my cell phone alongside the stinky mollusc remains...

Incidentally, Bernard got back to me, and reckons that the 'winter plumage' marbled murrelet that I saw a few days ago is actually likely to one of this year's juveniles. I'd assumed it was too early for one to be offshore here so soon, but he assures me that it's about the right time for the first young to be showing up. Cheers Bernard!