This is the Buena Vista Audubon/San Diego Pelagics trip report for Sunday, October 13, 2019. Thirty-two passengers and six leaders meet at H & M Landing for a ten-hour trip offshore. Leaders were Matthew Binns, Peter Ginsburg, Gary Nunn, Guy McCaskie, Bruce Rideout, and myself. Sea conditions were exceptionally light, with a one foot swell predicted and winds of less than ten knots. The area inside the Channel Islands and off San Diego is often blessed with nice sea conditions, and today was even better than that. I can safely say we suffered more motion inside San Diego Bay due to boat traffic than we did at sea.
Offshore, we encountered mostly pelicans, cormorants, gulls, and terns until we reached the deep water inside the Nine Mile Bank. This area produced nice numbers of Black-vented Shearwaters, an early Northern Fulmar, a couple of Brown Boobies, a Parasitic Jaeger, and several groups of migrating ducks. This area has produced for us all summer and did again today. The Nine Mile Bank also looked good today, with a solo Pink-footed Shearwater, many more Black-vents, and several Common Terns (never common here). But best of all was a black and white booby over a pod of Common Dolphins as we came to the outer edge of the bank. We chased it, but never really caught up to. Fortunately, some of the photographers on the boat got shots that could be blown up to prove it was a near adult Nazca Booby, with it’s characteristic bright orange/pinkish bill. This species, once considered a subspecies of Masked Booby, was exceedingly rare in California waters prior to 2017. Then their numbers exploded here. Thoughts are that food resources in their normal range off the west coast of Panama, Columbia, and Ecuador collapsed, and that other food sources were utilized, such as flying fish chased up by ships transiting along the eastern Pacific, thus making them ship followers/riders into our area, where food is currently abundant. Two even set up shop on south San Diego Bay during the winter of 2017-18 and were seen by hundreds of birders from around the country. This is the third offshore Nazca Booby for us this fall, with several more seen from shore, and yet three more together on San Diego Bay September 6th, 2019! This is still a very nice sighting, not quite ho hum yet, but no longer frontpage news. We also got very nice looks at a Pomarine Jaeger chasing a tern in this area, which of course was overshadowed by the chase after the booby.
The San Diego Trough was very quiet today. That’s not unusual. This ten mile wide area is over 3,000 feet deep and featureless, so often is devoid of much life, but sometimes turns up good birds and marine life – quality over quantity. Today it was great looks at a pod of Risso’s Dolphins – maybe 25-30 animals, and cooperative. This species of dolphin is not always boat friendly. These guys were right off the bow, and with fairly clear water, were visible both above and below the surface.
Our only alcids today were several Cassin’s Auklets, and as is often the case, seen only at a great distance. It’s easy to try and make them into something more exciting in the early morning low light, but again, photos often sort things out.
The Thirty Mile Bank was also rather quiet today. This bank is really more of a ridge rising up from over 3,000 feet to 700-800 feet along its crest. Like most banks off Southern California, it slants southeast to northwest and was formed by a major fault line. The south end is the closest to shore, being 22 nautical miles from Point Loma. The northern part is about 32 nm west of La Jolla, but closer to San Clemente Island, putting it in Los Angeles County. Historically we have found storm-petrel rafts right on the county line. This summer, those gatherings of resting storm-petrels had been absent here, though we still would see storm-petrels scattered about this area. So I had no expectation of seeing a raft today. Oops! Today there WAS a raft, but not a huge one. They can sometimes number in the thousands or even tens of thousands. This one was maybe 200 at best and they scattered before we could get everyone on them. This raft, as many or most off San Diego, was made up of primarily of Black Storm-Petrels, but two smaller birds split out of the tangle of wings and tails. Thanks to the quick camera work of Nancy Christensen, they proved to be Least Storm-Petrels based on their tiny, big-winged, and short-tailed (almost tailess) appearance. This species is a San Diego specialty, and is abundant some years, but was absent this summer. They often quickly leave the scene once flushed, so not everyone got on them in time. By the way, all were in San Diego County – the county line is about 26.8 nm offshore at this spot, and the raft was 26 nm out.
Heading back to the east, we came on a big Fin Whale for some excellent looks. We worked our way up into the mouth of the La Jolla Canyon, then back south toward the north end of the Nine Mile Bank. We had good numbers of birds here, adding a Sooty Shearwater, more Northern Fulmars, and several jaegers – about evenly split between Pomarine and Parasitic. We also had an adult Herring Gull come in and join the chummed gull flock, which along with a dozen or so California Gulls, represented the first of the wintering gulls to arrive. As we made our way back to the Bay, we drove right by a lone Red-necked Phalarope over the kelp bed. Phalarope numbers have been low this fall.
So that wraps up 2019. We plan a similar schedule of pelagic trips in 2020, so watch this web page for the upcoming schedule.
Dave Povey
Buena Vista Audubon/San Diego Pelagics
Species Totals:
Surf Scoter 8
Common Loon 2
Eared Grebe 3 S.D.Bay
Northern Fulmar 7
Pink-footed Shearwater 22
Sooty Shearwater 1-2
Black-vented Shearwater 400+
Ashy Storm-Petrel 1
Leach’s Storm-Petrel 1
Black Storm-Petrel 100+
Least Storm-Petrel 1-2
storm-petrel sp. 15-20
Brown Booby 3
Nazca Booby 1
Brandt’s Cormorant 14
Double-crested Cormorant 1
Brown Pelican 30
Red-necked Phalarope 1
Phalarope sp. 7
Pomarine Jaeger 4
Parasitic Jeager 5
Jaeger sp. 5
Cassin’s Auklet 1
Alcid sp. 6
Heermann’s Gull 10
Herring Gull 1
California Gull 13
Western Gull 200+
Common /Arctic Tern 3
Royal Tern 32
Elegant Tern 4
Marine Mammals:
Fin Whale
Minke Whale
Large whale sp.
Risso’s Dolphin 25-30
Common Dolphin 200-300
California Sea Lion
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