In Alaska the long Summer daylight hours begin to shorten as August comes. After leaving Rugged Island, Mary's bay, it started to get dark. By 11 pm it is dark. We were running the engine so we had our white steaming light on, along with our running lights. Our mainsail was full out as we planned on motor sailing all night. About midnight we could see birds passing through the steaming light beam, about half way up the mast. Soon there were a dozen or more and they were swarming the light and circling the mast. As they say; "like moths to a flame". Inevitably one would fly into the mainsail and with wings beating hard, they would start a long slide down to the coach top, onto the side decks, and sometimes into the cockpit. The cockpit of a Saturna is designed as small and deep, If a bird ended up in the cockpit there was no room for a take off and I would have to go out, pick it up, and release it. They were pretty cooperative. Of the fifteen or so I released throughout the night, only one even took a peck at me. I once made the mistake of wearing a headlight outside and in a few minutes two flying birds had headed for the light, only to give me a face full of beak, feathers, and beating wings Thankfully these were small birds, about the size of a Robin, and very soft, like their bodies were pure goose down. At first it was entertaining to see them side down the sail and eventually either fly off or be released. But once, I waited to long to check the cockpit and there were four birds in there all together. It was the only time I saw any panic in them as usually they would be sitting calmly until I gathered them and helped them launch. I suppose the four in close quarters caused them to panic and feed the panic off of each other. The result was quite a mess in the cockpit, as there was regurgitated small fish all over the cockpit floor, and smeared up the walls. It was no longer entertaining as the cockpit smelled so bad, like week old herring oil splashed all over the place. That's was it! The steaming light went off and even the running lights were turned off for a short time. Thank goodness it worked, and the birds found elsewhere to go. Eventually we turned the running lights back on but no more steaming light. Picture is of a bird on the coach house roof. Can anyone ID what bird it is? I have no idea.