This is the report for the Sunday August 18, 2019, pelagic trip aboard the Grande out of H&M Sportfishing Landing on San Diego Bay. Fifty one passengers, with leaders Tom Blackman, Guy McCaskie, Jimmy McMorran, Gary Nunn, Bruce Rideout, Matt Sadowski, and I, met at the top of the dock, where I did a brief orientation to the boat, then we boarded, ready for our adventure at sea. Conditions where very nice, with great visibility, light breezes, and a marine overcast to deaden the glare early. Temperatures were pleasant.
The trip down the bay was uneventful, with numbers of all three large tern species, Caspian, Royal, and most of all, Elegant Terns. We stopped very briefly for a look at Ballast Point, for a mob of loafing Brown Pelicans and Heermann’s Gulls, both of which are regulars there at low tide. Once offshore, the visibility was excellent, with clear views of the Coronado Islands some 12 miles away. We found an exceptionally flat swell and almost no hint of a breeze. Not a lot of birds in this zone, and the water was cold, 63 degrees and dirty, a bit odd for late summer. There must be a fair upwelling along the coast here. A few of the scum lines had Red-necked Phalaropes scattered about.
Further out into the deep water, inside the Nine Mile Bank, the water warmed slightly to about 67, and life seemed to increase a bit, with first sightings of Black-vented Shearwater and a few Black Storm-Petrels. The water here was still off colored. We crossed the Nine Mile Bank and found it unusually quiet, as was the outer edge. We had a scattering of Black-vents, a Sooty Shearwater, and a few Black Storm-Petrels. The water was still off colored and filled with surf grass, bits of kelp, and the like.
In the middle of the San Diego Trough, things had not improved much, and it wasn’t until we approached the far southern end of the Thirty Mile Bank that we saw an improvement in birds, life signs, and water conditions in general. Here we found lots of Sooties, fair numbers of Pink-footed Shearwaters, Black Storm-Petrels, a couple of Leach’s, a few Red Phalaropes, and several distant murrelet sightings. Then came the call that there was a booby… a RED-FOOTED BOOBY. A nice adult dark morph, first seen and called out by Guy McCaskie. This bird came right up the stern, then seeing the gulls had nothing of interest, swung to the right side and headed north.
About the time everyone had gotten on the now distant booby, it was gone.
Then, a short time later, out of no where, it made another pass at the boat, as if to be sure all hands got a look, gliding this time over the bow and down the left side. Great looks and photos for all hands. Red-footed Booby is a rarity in California; it was not even recorded in the state until 1975. Last year was epic. Prior to 2018, there were only nine accepted records of Red-footed Booby for San Diego County. Then, in 2018, eleven were recorded. We had two on this trip last year. Sightings for the species had dropped off this year, with none reported recently recently. It is no longer a mega-rarity, but certainly a very nice sighting.
We continued west right on the border headed to the “corner”, a sharp bend in the U.S. – Mexico border, and as far west as one can go before entering Los Angeles County due to proximity to San Clemente Island. This area was alive with birds, dolphins, an Elephant Seal, and a Mako Shark. We also got a couple of distant looks at Craveri’s Murrelets, a closer-in Sabine’s Gull, and a Common Tern. Then came the call of another booby sighting. This one was black and white, so clearly an adult or near adult bird. It made a fairly close approach from behind, then flying down the left side of the boat, but this time it was a one-time flyby and then it was gone. The bill color on this bird was hard to determine because of the glare on that side of the boat side, but photos showed the bright orange and pink bill of a NAZCA BOOBY – yet another species we were unlikely to get in years prior to 2017, with only one accepted record for San Diego County. Then in 2017 we had nine, 2018 yielded five more, with some four additional birds left unresolved as Masked/Nazca types. It was amazing that we had already seen two of the four toughest booby species to get, and yet we still had not seen the more or less expected Brown Booby, which, it turned out, we would miss entirely. Go figure.
This area also turned up a number of good storm-petrel sightings. A cluster of eight Ashy Storm-Petrels was sitting on the water, and best of all, a distant TOWNSEND’S STORM-PETREL was photographed by Gary Nunn. This species is now split from the similar Leach’s Storm-Petrel. These white-rumped Townsend’s are more likely to be confused with Wilson’s Storm-Petrel, or even Wedge-rumped Storm-Petrel, than with Leach’s. Townsend’s are compact, dark bodied, and shorter winged than Leach’s. The feet do not extending beyond the tail as in Wilson’s, and the white does not extend to the tip of the tail as in Wedge-rumped. This is a much sought after species, seen regularly in small numbers each fall just to our west, but it is a bit tougher to find them in San Diego County waters.
Traveling west, we seemed to drive out of the area with all the life, so as we were nearing our western limit for the county, I made the decision to turn back to the Thirty Mile Bank, where we planned to work our way north along the bank. That’s when our day’s adventure took a turn. We often take the boats we charter for these trips for granted. They are well maintained and Coast Guard inspected, they run nearly everyday during the fishing season, and are amazingly reliable. Grande is no exception. But today she reminded us of how complicated the machinery is to move and control an 85ft. boat in this harsh marine environment – we broke the starboard propeller shaft. Both Capt. James and I had heard of it happening, but neither of us had ever experienced it. The problem was that the propeller and shaft had slid back into the now turned rudder, pinning it in a hard turn. The captain and crew quickly checked for water incursion, found none, then assessed the next steps to get us back underway. That required a crewmember to go into the water, tie a rope over the propeller, and those on deck pulled the whole assembly forward and tied it off. After a broken rope, the second try worked. Steering resumed and we were back underway on the port engine – relief. But Captain James felt that a direct return to San Diego Bay was prudent, and that stopping and maneuvering for birds along the way would not be wise. Thank goodness for light seas and a comfortable ride. We did have birds on the way in, and did see a nice selection, but the only new bird was a distant jaeger chasing Elegant Terns. This jaeger’s ability to stay with the tern, no matter how the pursued bird twist and turned, was amazing. The jaeger, once successful in getting it’s victim to cough up it’s catch, went on to the next tern and the next – quite a way to get one’s meals.
We returned to the dock with a nice list for the day, thankful that our adventures turned out well.
Dave Povey
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