We departed H&M Landing at 7 a.m. aboard the 85 ft. Grande, with fifty-one passengers and six leaders. Leaders were Dave Povey, Tom Blackman, Nancy Christensen, Peter Ginsburg, Bruce Rideout, and Justyn Stahl. We checked the San Diego Bay bait receivers for the now nearly three-week old report of a Nazca Booby. No luck there, but it’s always interesting to see the mass of herons, egrets, gulls, pelicans, and the thousand or so Brandt’s Cormorants roosting around these docks.
We moved on to Ballast Point to check for oystercatchers, but again, no luck. They are uncommon here and Point Loma has several miles of habitat for them to get lost. The cobble beach did have an amazing number of Heermann’s Gulls. This Mexican Gull is not unusually here on the point in large numbers. Proceeding out to sea we found a number of Red-necked Phalaropes gathered along the scum lines of the tidal outflow. Further down the channel we had the first of many inshore Black-vented Shearwaters, several Elegant Terns, and the first Brown Booby for the day. Brown Booby is always nice to see but has become a little bit of a ho-hum species for us. They were rare here prior to about 1999-2000, but increased into 2010-2015, and have now settled into being regular in small numbers on most trips locally. Today we would see five, all juveniles.
The deep water inside the Nine Mile Bank had an increase in life, but overall was somewhat slow. This area has held more bird life recently than we were seeing this morning. Nevertheless, we got nice looks at a fair number of Black-vented Shearwaters and both Pomarine and Parasitic Jaegers. The Nine Mile Bank has been quiet all summer, but again we found a few interesting species, including the first Pink-footed Shearwater and the often abundant Black Storm-Petrels. This summer Black Storm-Petrels have been all but missing, and that was the case again today. I am not sure what has changed; Black Storm-Petrels seemed to be in normal numbers this spring (hundreds or thousands), then they moved out of our area and have only been found small numbers since.
We then moved out over the San Diego Trough, a ten-mile wide deep water area without any seafloor features to create upwelling, so it often has little bird life. But when birds are found here, it’s often one of the sought-after species. So, a well-seen and photographed Ashy Storm-Petrel was a nice bonus for the Trough. The Thirty Mile Bank produced nice looks at Long-tailed Jaeger and Common Tern, neither of which is common here. Also seen here, and a fair bit early, was a south-bound Common Loon. The middle part of the bank got us some good looks at Pink-footed Shearwaters. It’s always nice when they follow the boat for the photographers.
We entered L.A. county briefly then after ensuring that we weren’t missing any large storm-petrel rafts, we moved back out over the San Diego Trough once again. A call of murrelets on the water stopped the boat. We had accidentally split a pair of Craveri’s Murrelets, and although the one bird we got on wanted to fly off, it would not leave its partner. We could hear the pair calling back and forth, and we got good looks as they swam back together to reunite before flying off together. We had two other pairs of small alcids that were poorly seen prior to these, and my best guess is that they were also Craveri’s Murrelets, although a very small number of Cassin’s Auklets have been in the area.
Next, a short distance east of that was a young Rhinoceros Auklet. This guy was not terribly cooperative, diving each time we got close, but I think all hands got reasonable views. Rhinoceros Auklet is not rare here, but most don’t arrive until late October or into November. We continued on a short distance to the east when we came on an area of Common Terns and Sabine’s Gulls. The beautiful little Sabine’s Gulls are the iconic pelagic birds of spring and fall migration. We usually see a few on the September trip, but today was a bonus with twenty plus. Here we had three Sabine’s Gulls together on the water with a tern that escaped our scrutiny. Photos of the three Sabine’s show a smallish tern with them that had a short neck, small bill, translucent flight feathers, and a narrow black trailing edge to the under wing. The upper wing lacked the dark wedge seen on the Common Tern’s wing. This was an Arctic Tern, which is not rare off southern California in fall but tends to stay much further offshore locally (50-60 nautical miles or more offshore). Out there it often is the only tern seen.
I almost forgot to mention the great jaeger show around that area of terns. Several times from the wheelhouse I could scan the horizon and see several jaegers chasing terns in multiple directions. Parasitic Jaegers seemed to be the most numerous today (15), with Pomarine Jaegers a close second (13). Long-tailed Jaegers (5 total), are not rare locally but like Arctic Terns, are more inclined to be farther offshore, so one juvenile on the north end of the Nine Mile Bank was nice. We also had a number of jaegers that escaped identification, so we had well over thirty of all three species on the day, which was more than we’d expected for these local trips.
Then just as we were getting back to the very north end of the Nine Mile Bank the call went up of Red-billed Tropicbird! The bird was high and circling around another area of terns, this time mostly Elegant Terns. It took us a while to get oriented and give chase. That was a bit of a stretch, as the boat only does about 8.5 knots. We did finally see the Tropicbird on the water, got the boat stopped, and got everyone on it. Unfortunately, it was not quite as close as we’d liked so we tried to maneuver closer, the bird decided enough of that and flew off. Odd for a tropicbird, as they are not boat shy as a rule.
The travel down the Nine Mile Bank was mostly uneventful, with lots of Black-vented Shearwaters, more jaegers, and fun close-up looks at a Humpbacked Whale that stole the show with its breaching, tail slapping, and overall antics. Nice weather and seas provided very pleasant conditions for us today and birding was great.
Species seen in San Diego Bay:
Mallard
Rock Pigeon
Heermann’s Gull
Western Gull
Royal Tern
Elegant Tern
Brandt’s Cormorant
Double-crested Cormorant
Brown Pelican
Great Blue Heron
Great Egret
Snowy Egret
Black-crowned Night-Heron
Osprey
Species seen at sea:
Surf Scoter
Common Loon
Pink-footed Shearwater
Sooty Shearwater
Black-vented Shearwater
Ashy Storm-Petrel
RED-BILLED TROPICBIRD
Brown Booby
Brandt’s Cormorant
Brown Pelican
Red-necked Phalarope
Pomarine Jaeger
Parasitic Jaeger
LONG-TAILED JAEGER
CRAVERI’S MURRELET
Rhinoceros Auklet
Sabine’s Gull
Heermann’s Gull
Western Gull
Common Tern
ARCTIC TERN
Elegant Tern
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Marine Mammals:
Humpback Whale
Common Dolphin
California Sea Lion
Fish:
Hammerhead Shark
Mako Shark
California Flying Fish
Yellowfin Tuna
Dave Povey
San Diego Pelagics
Buena Vista Audubon
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