This is the trip report for Oct. 22, 2017. Thirty-nine passengers and six leaders meet at Point Loma Sportfishing Landing on a glorious morning on San Diego Bay.
Leaders were Tom Blackman, Paul Lehman, Guy McCaskie, Bruce Rideout, Justyn Stahl, and myself. After an orientation we shoved off for a ride down the bay to the ocean.

We got looks at a number of the bay’s regular birds, including all three species of large terns –Caspian, Royal, and Elegant. Two of these, Caspian and Elegant, are in their annual seasonal decline. Elegant Terns will be gone in the next week or so. We also picked up the more midsized Forster’s Tern. Heermann’s Gulls are in good numbers now, making up about half of the gulls behind the boat as we started to chum. Heermann’s Gulls are a Mexican-breeding gull that disperses north to the west coast of North America. All are now in winter plumage, with a surprisingly good mix of juvenile birds of the year. I say that because juvenile birds have been nearly absent for the last three years. Breeding failures occurred on the colonies in the Sea of Cortez during those years. Today’s first winter Heermann’s Gulls made up about 5-10 percent of the gulls at the mouth of the bay.

Before we got the two-mile buoy (#3) off Point Loma, we had a flyby Parasitic Jaeger. We did a slight detour to the #2 buoy in hopes of a booby, but it turned out to be another Brandt’s Cormorant – an abundant inshore species here. The first leg of the trip had a couple of groups of migrating Common Loons. These are the regular early south-bound loon. Pacific and Red-throated Loons come down later, and in that order. I find loon migration flight interesting, as they clearly fly together as a group, but have no formation. They seem to be scattered all over the sky from near the surface to a couple of hundred feet off the water and hundreds of yards front to back. Makes getting an accurate count difficult, and sometimes one group seems to straggle into the next. I wonder at the benefit of this form of flock movement. Two lazy high flying Great Egrets came by us headed due south, then, as they could no longer see land in that direction, reversed course and came back over us as they returned in the direction of terra firma.

This area turned up our first Black-vented Shearwaters, Red-necked Phalaropes, and Cassin’s Auklets. All these species are pretty common once off the immediate coast. Black-vented Shearwaters became our most abundant species on the day, and we got much better looks as they came in to check out the chummed gull flock. We did get reasonably close to a number of Red-necked Phalaropes, but decent looks at Cassin’s Auklets as usual eluded us. Cassin’s Auklets, although relatively common here, just don’t let the boat approach. So for any look, the bow is usually the place to be. We did get a very distant look at a Brown Booby in this segment of our trip, which was one of three seen on the day. One other was also distant and poorly seen by many, but fortunately we were able to drive right up to the last one as it sat on the water, then got up and flew down the left side of the boat. This one was an adult male brewsteri Brown Booby (noted by frosted white head). I sure most got good looks and photos. Interestingly, Brown Booby sightings here seem to have tapered off a bit. The colony at Middle Rock just across the border seems to no longer be growing. This year found only one pair tending young, and very few juveniles or subadults there. Brown Boobies no longer seem to be interested in the chummed gull flocks either. They may be boobies, but they have learned that a gull flock behind a fishing boat doesn’t mean food for them. The rare Brown Booby that approaches the boat is almost always a juvenile. It will be interesting to follow the Brown Booby’s story in the coming years.

Once we hit the waters over the Nine Mile Bank we moved north along the spine and actually seemed to lose the birds. We had a couple of good pods of Common Dolphin, a few of which gave us a nice show with their bow riding. The Nine-Mile Bank has not produced the life this year that it has in the past. Interestingly the deep water over the San Diego Trough has been better. I would usually announce that the Trough was a good place to catch some lunch or a quick nap. Not this year. We’ve had to stay on our toes. But today it fell back into the typical mode. We did get Pink-footed Shearwater there, a species not shy about approaching the gull flock behind the boat. Today’s low numbers reflect the fall pullout and return to the southern hemisphere for their Austral summer breeding islands off Chile. Two juvenile Sabine’s Gulls were nice to see. They are at the latter end of migration from the high arctic to the warm climes of the southern hemisphere. A distant jaeger was also seen out here, but too far off to chase. Likely a Pomarine, but the other species can’t be eliminated at this point in fall migration, as all three species were seen on a scouting trip the previous weekend. We did get a nice look at a full “tail spoons” Pomarine Jaeger on the return to the coast. The Thirty-Mile Bank was as fickle as can be today. The storm-petrels seemed to have completely moved out. Overall this has been a poor summer for storm-petrel numbers here. We never really did find a large “raft” of the magnitude of recent years. Black Storm-Petrels numbers were very low all summer. Ashy Storm-Petrels numbers seemed good, perhaps better than most years. I thought Leach’s Storm-Petrels numbers were a bit low this year. Although this area is marginal to their main area further offshore, Least Storm-Petrels seem to be mostly a no-show. I say all of this as it was disappointing that the only two storm-petrels we saw flushed well ahead of the boat, and remained so distant that they could only be identified as “non-Black” Storm-Petrels. I did not see the birds, but one experienced seabirder felt they were likely Ashies . We did get good looks at a Northern Fulmar, as we did on last weekend’s scouting trip. This bird was a pale brown morph. Last weekend’s bird was a white morph. The one offshore oddity was a land bird identified as a Pine Siskin by sight and call. Certainly an unusual “pelagic” species! I gather Pine Siskins are on the move on land, so I guess we shouldn’t have been too surprised, but that’s a new land bird for me at sea. We picked up two interesting gulls on the way back towards the beach. Neither are rare, but both were early arrivals from the north. The first was a juvenile Bonaparte’s Gull, the other a first winter Glaucous-winged Gull. Bonaparte’s Gulls will become abundant locally this winter, with many thousands of birds some winters. Glaucous-winged Gulls are never in numbers here, but I would be surprised if we didn’t get one to three or four on a winter trip offshore here. We also had a good look at a young Elephant Seal on the way back in.

Species list for San Diego Bay:

Mallard
Eared Grebe
Western Grebe
Clark’s Grebe
Brandt’s Cormorant
Double-crested Cormorant
Brown Pelican
Great Blue Heron
Great Egret
Snowy Egret
Black -crowned Night-Heron
American Coot
Willet
Heermann’s Gull
Western Gull
Caspian Tern
Forster’s Tern
Royal Tern
Elegant Tern
Rock Pigeon
Mourning Dove
Black Phoebe
American Crow

California Sea Lion

Species offshore:

Common Loon
Northern Fulmar
Pink-footed Shearwater
Sooty Shearwater
Black-vented Shearwater
storm-petrel sp.
Brown Booby
Brandt’s Cormorant
Double-crested Cormorant
Brown Pelican
Great Egret
Red-necked Phalarope
Pomarine Jaeger
Parasitic Jaeger
Cassin’s Auklet
Sabine’s Gull
Bonaparte’s Gull
Heermann’s Gull
Western Gull
California Gull
Glaucous-winged Gull
Forster’s Tern
Royal tern
Elegant Tern
Pine Siskin

Marine Mammals

Common Dolphin
Elephant Seal
California Sea Lion

Fish:

Mola mola (Ocean Sunfish)
Tuna sp.

Dave Povey

This is the trip report for the Buena Vista Audubon and Grande pelagic trip on Sunday, Sept. 24th, 2017. This trip will always be remembered as the trip that got the NAZCA BOOBY, but more on that later. Thirty-four passengers and six leaders met at Point Loma Sportfishing Landing on a beautiful sunrise morning on San Diego Bay. Leaders were Tom Blackman, Peter Ginsburg, Guy McCaskie, Gary Nunn, Justyn Stahl, and myself. We did a quick orientation and loaded up for a 7 a.m. cast off. We rode down the bay to check out the bait docks for all the usual suspects, pelicans, cormorants, long-legged waders, gulls, and California Sea Lions. An Osprey was seen at the submarine base, and a couple of Royal Terns were seen overhead. We then did a quick pass of Ballast Point for more Heermann’s Gulls. It seems the breeding season was Ok this year, as about 10% of those birds appeared to be young of the year.

Once offshore we found reasonable seas, though a week of wind had left a short interval wind wave that lessened over the day. Inshore the cormorants and pelicans and gulls were the only birds, but as we passed the number three buoy we started to pick up a few Red-necked Phalaropes. These phalaropes were seen all day, scattered and at all distances. The first few Black-vented Shearwaters made quick flybys. We had some frustration early over the relatively quick and distant looks, but we made up for that with many hundred seen in the afternoon, often very close to the boat. The one surprise here was a MERLIN that passed down the right side of the boat. Peregrine Falcon is an uncommon but regular offshore visitor (I believe they hunt in that zone), but I don’t recall ever seeing a Merlin offshore. This bird may have been flying down the Point and lost contact with the coast at the tip, as we were almost due south of Point Loma and about two miles down. We did also flush a pair of small alcids, that some thought might have been murrelets. The danger here with the bright low angle sun is that it can exaggerate the “white bellied” look, making Cassin’s Auklets look more like murrelets. We did kick up a number of distant Cassin’s Auklets on the next leg of the trip. Some observers also had a poorly seen passerine, perhaps and warbler, in this area.

The Nine Mile Bank was rather quiet, as it has been all summer, but we found the south end of the San Diego Trough equally so today, with Pink-footed Shearwaters slow to appear, but a very dark Pomarine Jaeger livened things up with the “false Skua” attack. Even the Thirty Mile Bank was a bit slow slow – we were half way up the bank before we found the first few Black Storm-Petrels. Then the trickle started and the numbers increased, with a white-rumped Leach’s Storm-Petrel in the mix. We turned west to get to a couple of high spots on the Thirty Mile Bank and that’s when things started to get interesting. We hit an area with maybe 15-20 Storm-Petrels, then an area with fifty stormies, and then another fifty with a few Ashy Storm-Petrels mixed in. We also picked up a cooperative young Sabine’s Gull, which was actually the second of the day, but the only one well seen by all hands. Things had certainly improved, but we had a large cargo/tanker ship bearing down on us, so we stopped maneuvering to allow it to pass at maybe 300 or 400 hundred yards. That’s when Gary Nunn called out a white booby riding the bow. I saw no booby on the bow, and was about to say so. Then I saw it. This booby was riding the air pressure way just ahead of the bow. I called on the chummers to go back to work, and Oscar, who was driving the boat, to start chasing that tanker. I’m sure he thought I’d lost my mind, since the ship was doing nearly 18 kts across the radar. The Grande maybe makes 8.5 kts if going “down hill” (with the wind and swell behind us), and we were sitting dead still. He knew we were not going to catch her. Fortunately the reinvigorated gull flock brought in what we initially thought was a Masked Booby. It circled back and we caught up to it as it plunged into the water in front of us at a distance, then closer, and finally within 100 yards from the bow. The bird appeared to be approaching adult plumage, with some dark feathers scattered in areas of the wings and back. Overall it was a white bodied bird with blackish flight and tail feathers, a dark mask, and a bright orange bill – not the dull yellow green bill expected for a Masked Booby. Oh my gosh, it’s a NAZCA BOOBY!!! I think I was speechless. What a find. Cameras were going crazy, high fives were going around, and there were lots of smiles. Since the trip, I have heard some discussion about whether or not this is a pure Nazca, or a hybrid Nazca/Masked Booby. As this is a new species (it was once considered a race or subspecies of Masked Booby), and certainly this bird is new to all of us, I will leave it to others to figure out the genetic origins of this particular bird. I have seen one other Nazca – it was an adult with many adult Masked Boobies on a tuna pen west of Bahia Magdalena off Baja Sur. I thought at the time it somewhat different in body shape. How one would tell that without the other species nearby to compare I have no idea. So I will leave the debate to those with far more knowledge on the subject than I. After the glow of the Nazca, we headed back to the east. Over all it was pretty quiet until we got into the Black-vented Shearwater zone some 6-8 miles off the beach. Then it was a steady stream of mostly northbound Black-vents, while we proceeded in the opposite direction. Two more poorly seen small alcids were flushed off Point Loma and we picked up another Pomarine and a Parasitic Jaeger, our last of three Sooty Shearwaters on the day, a couple of Common Terns, and two Elegant Terns. We also had an odd adult Herring Gull with a red eye ring. Maybe there are some other genes mixed in there. Last was a passerine that may have been a Bobolink – poor photos seem to show orange color on the head pattern. Interesting day. A little slow with some disappointments, but the Nazca Booby made up for all the misses, and then some.

Bird Species seen in San Diego Bay:

Mallard
Brandt’s Cormorant
Double-crested Cormorant
Brown Pelican
Great Blue Heron
Great Egret
Snowy Egret
Osprey
Heermann’s Gull
Western Gull
Royal Tern
Rock Pigeon
American Crow
Barn Swallow
Brewer’s Blackbird

Bird species at sea:

Cinnamon Teal
Pink-footed Shearwater
Sooty Shearwater
Black-vented Shearwater
Leach’s Storm-Petrel
Ashy Storm-Petrel
Black Storm-Petrel
NAZCA BOOBY
Brown Booby
Brandt’s Cormorant
Brown Pelican
Red-necked Phalarope
Pomarine Jaeger
Parasitic Jaeger
Cassin’s Auklet
Small alcid sp.
Sabine’s Gull
Heermann’s Gull
Western Gull
California Gull
Herring Gull
Common Tern
Elegant Tern
Merlin
Passerine sp.

Fish:

Mako Shark
Mola mola (Ocean Sunfish)

Mammals:

California Sea Lion
Common Dolphin
Minke Whale

Dave Povey

The August 20th Buena Vista Audubon pelagic trip set off in near-perfect weather and sea conditions with 38 passengers and six leaders, including Dave Povey, Gary Nunn, Peter Ginsburg, Matthew Binns, Nancy Christensen, and Bruce Rideout. We had a nice start to the trip with a PEREGRINE FALCON perched on a sailboat masthead as we pulled away from the dock and headed into the harbor. A quick pass of the bait dock and Ballast Point yielded the expected residents, so we continued southward to clear the kelp beds before turning northwest towards the Nine Mile Bank. BLACK-VENTED SHEARWATERS were in lower than expected numbers, but we made up for that with the first of four BROWN BOOBIES for the day. Not long after, we had the first few CRAVERI’S MURRELETS, one of our target species for the day. They were typically difficult to get close views of, but most participants eventually got good looks as the day went on. We also began picking up occasional small groups of CASSIN’S AUKLETS and RED-NECKED PHALAROPES, which would continue through most of the day.

BLACK STORM-PETRELS kept their distance until we got closer to the Nine Mile Bank, where we also picked up a few ASHY STORM-PETRELS and a mix of dark and light-rumped LEACH’S STORM-PETRELS. Later in the evening, Gary Nunn was reviewing his photos of these storm-petrels, to find that one was a potential WEDGE-RUMPED STORM-PETREL! This is a species that breeds in the Galapagos and islands off of Peru and Chile and doesn’t normally come further north than halfway up the Baja California peninsula. There are only nine accepted records for California, so if accepted, this will be a notable find! Distinguishing this species from our white-rumped Leach’s is difficult without close views or careful study of photographs, so it’s not surprising that the identification was made only from photos.

By the time we finished with the Nine and Thirty-Mile Banks, we had managed a jaeger grand slam, with several POMARINE, a PARASITIC, and at least one LONG-TAILED JAEGER. We also had a pair of COMMON TERNS, which are not actually very common for us, so they were a nice addition late in the day. Common Dolphins kept us company most of the day and put on quite a show at times, but Cetacean diversity was a bit lower than usual, with a single Minke Whale as the only other sighting. Other marine species included occasional Mola Molas, or Ocean Sunfish, a Hammerhead Shark, and a California Flying Fish.

Overall it was a fabulous day on the water.

This is the trip report for Sunday May 21, 2017. Thirty-four passengers and seven leaders meet on a bright clear morning with a quarter moon and a beautiful sunrise.
The trip leaders were Tom Blackman, Matthew Binns, Peter Ginsburg, Paul Lehman, Guy McCaskie, Dave Povey, and Bruce Rideout. As the day broke we got all hands organized. Paul did an orientation and we cast off for the ocean. We got a nice mixture of terns on our way out with Caspian, Royal, Elegant and Forster’s Terns seen. We even got good looks at a couple of Heermann’s Gulls on the way down the channel. Heermann’s Gulls are prototypical San Diego beach birds most of the year, but are largely absent for the late spring and early summer. They breed on islands in the Sea of Cortez, and then disperse to the northwest as far as southern Canada.

We did a slow cruise by Ballast Point, the sight of a cobble beach known historically for its rocks being used as ballast in old sailing ships. This was also the location for the Spanish Fort Guijarros (little stones), and later an early lighthouse. Today only the U.S. Coast Guard and a lone Whimbrel and Killdeer occupied the point.

The weather offshore was different than what we’d just experienced in the bay – an ominous fog bank hung just off Point Loma, and a cool breeze and swell on a fairly short interval set in. Often this is the most uncomfortable portion of the ride and so it was today. To clear the shallows and attending kelp beds, we have to proceed south for a couple of miles before turning west and taking the swell and wind wave head on. The swell interval then lengthens and one can get the feel for a steady fore and aft rise and fall, instead of the disconcerting side roll we had in the ship channel. Even before we cleared the kelp beds a Brown Booby was called out, follow by a second. Brown Booby was once quite rare here, with only a single record for California prior to 1983. Then in the 90’s the number of records accelerated. Brown Boobies were seen in numbers around the Coronado Islands just below the Mexican Border, and by 2006 we were seeing boobies on most of our trips. Now we count Brown Booby as regular here and would feel slighted if we missed it. Brown Boobies have nested and raised young on the Coronado Islands each year, likely starting around the year 2000, and in recent years have traveled well north of us into Central and Northern California. Brown Booby is certainly an amazing story with the unseen changes in the ocean environment locally. We counted seventeen today, a very nice number, but certainly within the norm.

The next species seen was Black-vented Shearwater, another regular and expected local specialty. Like the Heermann’s Gull, its numbers are at low point here during the breeding season. They nest on islands well below the Mexican border on the Pacific Coast of Baja. We saw the first few at distance, and that can be frustrating, but as the chummed flock of gulls behind the boat is irresistible to them, we soon got much better looks. This small fast moving shearwater is dark above and has a white breast and belly. The plumage pattern is somewhat variable, but the flight style is pretty consistent. The burst of rapid wing flaps followed by a short glide is pretty distinctive, and once keyed in on, helps separate it from other shearwaters. We had fair numbers of Black-vented Shearwaters today (24), perhaps a bit higher than one would expect for late May. Hopefully this is not a sign of problems for the Black-vents breeding this year.

Further offshore we added sightings of Sooty Shearwater. This is a dark-bellied shearwater and equally fast moving. Unfortunately they are much less likely to check out our chummed gull flock, but their numbers gave us some closer looks by chance. This is a southern hemisphere breeder, spending their winter up here during our summer. Many are in wing feather molt, so the unusual light areas on their wings correspond to uncovered feather shafts. Sooty shearwaters will complete their wing molt before returning to breeding areas off South America and New Zealand. The next species also showed no interest in our chummed gull flock, in fact they would prefer to avoid boats and gulls. These were Black Storm-Petrels. Again, looks can be frustrating and distant. Black Storm-Petrels are all dark, and although small, are actually on the larger end of the scale for a storm-petrel. The wing beat is distinctive; in straight line flight they raise their wings quite high and take a deep wing stroke downward. They may actually do short glides, almost shearwater-like. They breed locally on the Coronado Islands, and on one of the islands further to the north of us. They are common in the summer months here, at times numbering in the thousands.

The last shearwater seen today was Pink-footed Shearwater, which are most often found outside the Nine Mile Bank, only rarely closer to shore. These guys love the gull flocks and are often the photographer’s best friend. They return to the flock over and over, giving everyone great close-in looks. Sooty Shearwaters, on the other hand, often make one pass and are gone. We certainly saw plenty of Pink-foot Shearwaters today and this can be an easy species to over count. Pink-footed Shearwaters are also southern hemisphere breeders, from the islands off of Chile. Like the Sooty Shearwater, most are currently in wing molt, often giving the upper wing a patterned look.

The breeze and sea conditions made it tough to find small alcids today. Two species were seen. The best looks were at a couple of pairs of Scripps’s Murrelets. This species has recently split from the old Xantus’ Murrelet. This is another local specialty that breeds on nearby islands, and is a species with a rather small world population. I have seen estimates of the total number of Xantus’ Murrelet, now broken into Scripps’s and Guadalupe Murrelets, at no more than 10-12 thousand birds. No matter the number of each species, the total is a very small number indeed. A third and very similar species is the more southerly Craveri’s Murrelet. They may in some years show up here in late spring into the summer and fall. This is a highly sought species for birders and can be difficult to get in the U.S. Interestingly, its population, although small, is actually larger than the old Xantus’ complex, at 13-15 thousand total birds. Only Scripps’s were found today, as would be expected. While we were looking at the first pair of Scripps’s Murrelets, we had a Wilson’s Warbler fly in and circle the boat at no more than arms length, even landing on my head briefly. It’s not that unusual to have migrating land birds drop down through the clouds at daybreak and find themselves out over the ocean. They then often see the boat as the only solid thing to land on. We had several land birds this morning, but this and a Yellow Warbler were the only two to approach close enough to I.D.

The only other species of alcid was Cassin’s Auklet. These are dumpy, small, gray, no-necked-looking, rather plain auklets, which are terrified by the boat and the gull flock. Most flee well out of the range of a normal birder’s vision, but occasionally may allow us to approach to within a moderate distance. They are food specialists, concentrating on the tiny euphausiids we call krill. Cassin’s Auklets are one of the most abundant alcids along the west coast of North America. Their population can be highly variable from point to point depending on food source abundance and availability near the surface. We saw less than 20 today, so it’s probably safe to say there are not a lot of krill available for them right now. This seems to be a down spring for Elegant Terns locally. Word is that they abandoned their nest colony in the salt works on San Diego Bay this year. We counted about 50 today, and they were seen at all distances from the beach out to the Thirty Mile Bank. Last year’s May 21st trip had 1400, and nesting at the salt works was a great success that year.
We also got distant looks at two rather late Sabine’s Gulls. These must be stragglers, as most Sabine’s Gulls passed up the coast on their way to their arctic breeding grounds more than a month ago. Common Terns may also have moved through earlier. Their spring migration is still a bit of a puzzle. We had birds as early as February this year, so the 8 seen today may be nonbreeders or stragglers. Common Terns are not common here, but when we see them it is more often in late summer and fall. Their numbers have fallen from historic records.

This next bird could have been a trip stopper, and almost got away entirely. It was a well photographed though distant COOK’S PETREL. As happens on these long 12hr trips, the afternoons on the return are warm, the ride smoother, and with the early wake-up, all hands are a bit worn out. Some are sleeping, other getting a bite of lunch, some lost in conversation. The few actively birding are on the bow, and the wheelhouse crew is concentrating forward, so for something good to sneak through way off the stern is not a surprise. One passenger who was alert got a few quick shots of something he could not identify, and then it was gone. Only when the photos were enlarged was it clear what he had. Would-a, could-a, should-a, but no way to go back by then. Every single birder on the boat would have had a county bird, some a life bird. The Cook’s Petrel is a really nice bird, and we are all envious. This is only the second record for the species in San Diego County waters. This bird was about 26 nm west of La Jolla, over the outer portion of the San Diego Trough. The other record was June 13, 1997 at 16 miles. Cook’s Petrel is another southern hemisphere breeder (islands off New Zealand) and is likely rare but regular in spring and early summer well offshore (>100 nm) near San Diego. My admonishment about things seen by one person, PLEASE HOLLER, even if you’re unsure – no one will care if it’s false alarm. Then, if it is that life bird, you’re a hero! You will also save us leaders a great deal of embarrassment.

The return back to, and then down, the Nine Mile Bank was uneventful. We did get better looks at Black Storm-Petrels and even the smaller Ashy Storm-Petrel, lots of Sooties, a few Pink-foots and Black-vents, and even a few Least Terns. The best show of the day was a feeding pod of Common Dolphin south of Point Loma, which yielded a nice mix of inshore species, including Brown Pelicans, Brandt’s Cormorants, Elegant Terns, and some eight Brown Boobies of all ages and sexes as a nice end-of-trip bonus. The west Mexico subspecies of Brown Booby is brewsteri; the adult males show a frosted white head, unlike males of other Brown Boobies subspecies. The adult females have a uniformly dark brown head and neck. Both were present and gave lots of photographers excellent shots. A fun finish as we headed into the harbor, with a quick look at Zuniga Jetty, and the bait docks for a few last photos of the regulars there. Sea surface temps were clearly cooler this spring. Today those temps were 62-67 degrees F.

Dave Povey

San Diego Bay:

Mallard
Common Loon
Brandt’s Cormorant
Double -crested Cormorant
Brown Pelican
Great Blue Heron
Great Egret
Snowy Egret
Black-crowned Night-Heron
Osprey
Killdeer
Whimbrel
Heermann’s Gull
Western Gull
Caspain Tern
Forster’s Tern
Royal Tern
Elegant Tern
Rock Pigeon
Anna’s Hummingbird
American Crow
Barn Swallow
European Starling

Offshore:

Brant
Pacific Loon
Common Loon
COOK’S PETREL
Pink-footed Shearwater
Sooty Shearwater
Black-vented Shearwater
Ashy Storm-Petrel
Black Storm-Petrel
Brown Booby
Brandt’s Cormorant
Double-crested Cormorant
Brown Pelican
Red-necked Phalarope
Scripps’s Murrelet
Cassin’s Auklet
Sabine’s Gull
Western Gull
California Gull
Least Tern
Common Tern
Elegant Tern
Yellow Warbler
Wilson’s Warbler

Fish:

Thresher Shark
California Flyingfish
Mola mola (Ocean Sunfish)
Silversides sp. (photo’d in Brown Booby’s bill)

Marine mammals:

Common Dolphin
California Sea Lion

This is the Buena Vista Audubon pelagic trip report for Saturday October 29, 2016, one of our few trips out of Mission Bay, aboard the very nice 80ft. boat Eclipse. The Eclipse is part of Pacific Nature Tours/ San Diego Whale Watching operation. We meet 26 passengers just before dawn to board after a brief onshore orientation given by Paul Lehman. Other leaders today were Peter Ginsburg, Gary Nunn, Bruce Rideout and myself.

We shoved off at the more relaxed time of 7:30 for the short run to the ocean. The very close-by bait docks yielded the usual pelicans, cormorants, herons, egrets, gulls, and loafing California Sea Lions. Unfortunately, the rock jetties turned out to be largely empty of shorebirds. We cruised to the southwest to intersect with the north end of the Coronado Escarpment (Nine Mile Bank). The crossing was a bit quiet, with a few Black-vented Shearwaters, Red Phalaropes, and Cassin’s Auklets – three species that would dominate the day, along with the ever-present Western Gulls chummed to the stern with popcorn.

The area of the Nine Mile Bank we targeted has been fairly reliable for Craveri’s Murrelets this summer and fall. This trip seemed to confirm that they might now have moved out. The sea surface conditions were far from perfect for a small alcid search, but we gave it a pretty good look both going south and returning back to the north. The drive down the outer edge of the Nine Mile Bank gave us most of the life today, with a couple of Pink-footed Shearwaters, loads of Black-vented Shearwaters, and a young Brown Booby that came in to look over the gull flock twice this morning in two different hour segments of the cruise. We also had distant and close-in looks at Pomarine Jaegers, and a quick flyby Parasitic Jaeger that many got photos of. Overall the bank was a bit sparse species-wise, although the Black-vents put on a good show. We did have brief glimpses of Common and Pacific White-side Dolphins and a onetime peak at a Minke Whale. One would conclude that this area still supports some activity, just not the level we’d hoped.

After a couple of crossing of the Nine and the deep water to the west we moved back to the north and up toward La Jolla. This is normally a good area, but has been unusually quiet this fall; it remained so today until we got well back in toward the beach. There we found better looks at Red and Red-necked Phalaropes and a few surprisingly inshore Cassin’s Auklets. We also had more of the inshore species such as Brandt’s Cormorants, Brown Pelicans, and a variety of gulls, including Heermann’s, Western, Herring, and California Gulls. A small flight of Surf Scoters was seen as we returned to Mission Bay. A Black Turnstone was reported as we entered the jetties, as were Royal Terns and a couple of Western Grebes. Our weather held up well, though a litter bigger 3-4ft swell from the south crossing a smaller more frequent 1-2ft swell from the west gave us an odd jolt from time to time. Wind was a comfortable 10kts with a two-foot wind wave from the west. Visibility was good at about 8-10 nautical miles and we had bright sun most of the trip. Air temps were in the upper 60s to mid 70s. Sea surface temps were mostly 67-68 0F. As with any trip offshore here, we get looks at a seldom seen environment. We are often surprised by what we find, and sometimes, as today, by what we don’t see. This has certainly been an odd fall migration in what seems to be a transition year form the hot surface temps of last year’s ocean to a more normal or even perhaps a cooler than normal water year for 2017. Only time will tell how this year fits in the long-term scheme.

Species list: * denotes Mission Bay only sightings.

Mallard*
Surf Scoter
Western Grebe*
Pink-footed Shearwater
Black-vented Shearwater
Brown Booby
Brandt’s Cormorant
Double-crested Cormorant
Brown Pelican
Great Blue Heron*
Great Egret*
Snowy Egret*
Little Blue Heron*
Black-crowned Night-Heron
Merlin*
Black Turnstone
Western Sandpiper*
Red-necked Phalarope
Red Phalarope
Pomarine Jaeger
Parasitic Jaeger
Cassin’s Auklet
Heermann’s Gull
Western Gull
California Gull
Herring Gull
Royal Tern
Belted Kingfisher*
American Crow*
Yellow-rumped Warbler*

Marine mammals:

Minke Whale
Common Dolphin
Pacific White-sided Dolphin
California Sea Lion

Dave Povey
www.sandiegopelagics.com

This is a trip report for the October 9, 2016 pelagic trip aboard the fishing boat Daily Double. Forty-two seabirders and five leaders met before dawn on a clear and calm morning at the Point Loma Landing in San Diego Bay. Leaders were Thomas Blackman, Peter Ginsburg, Guy McCaskie, Justyn Stahl, and me, Dave Povey. We did a brief orientation and got all hands boarded. Captain Carl did a brief safety talk and we were on our way, with a brief u-turn for two passengers that were very nearly left behind. We checked the bait receivers for the usual pelicans, cormorants, herons, egrets, gulls, and sea lions. We also checked Ballast Point, but as the tide was in, no shorebirds were found. We cruised down the buoy line and the next to last one had a nice adult female Brown Booby perched alongside a Brandt’s Cormorant. Brown Boobies have been a regular feature of pelagic trips here in recent years, but this year Brown Booby has been a little tougher to come by. This would be the only Brown Booby on today’s trip.

Offshore the mainstay was Red-necked Phalaropes feeding and flying around the scum lines created by the tide flows from San Diego Bay. Black-vented Shearwaters, our local inshore tubenose, were seen only at a distance. The majority of Black-vented Shearwaters were farther offshore than usual. Fortunately we found no shortage of them on the outer edge of the Nine Mile Bank. There we had several rafts of well-fed Black-vented Shearwaters on the water for nice views and lots of photographs. We also found a very few Pink-footed Shearwaters among these rafts. Although a southern hemisphere species, Pink-footed Shearwater is a regular visitor along the outer edge of the Nine Mile Bank in their winter, our summer. During the 2016 spring, summer, and fall seasons their numbers have been very low here. That was the case today. Not sure what the cause, as there have been epic numbers of forage fish here this year.

We turned and worked our way up the bank when we sighted a whale. We saw a large Fin Whale and positioned the boat near it and the bait fish ball it seemed to be chasing. We then had a very close-in whale that appeared different, but we were still thinking Fin Whale. I believe this was actually a Minke Whale based on smaller size, more triangular dorsal fin, and the lack of a visible spout. I also saw the right side of the jaw and it was not white as a Fin Whale’s. So maybe two whales? We also got quite a feeding flock of Black-vents here. Further up the bank we picked up a few Cassin’s Auklets. This widespread and nearly ever-present small alcid is rarely cooperative and that was the case again today. We did get our first murrelets here and photos proved them to be Craveri’s Murrelets – life birds for a number of our group today. Craveri’s Murrelets are a Mexican species that moves into our waters some years and are absent in others. We seem to be in the midst of a number of years of their being a regular post-breeding visitor locally. Farther west we headed into an area where we had storm-petrel rafts on the last two trips. Unfortunately, the raft could not be found today. We did get a distant storm-petrel or two here and there, making one wonder if they were just a mile or two away from our search area. Both the ubiquitous Black Storm-Petrel and a small number of dark-rumped Chapman’s Leach’s Storm-Petrels were seen. The lack of stormies was offset somewhat by a nice jaeger show. All three species – Pomarine, Parasitic, and the tough to get Long-tailed Jaeger –were seen. The Long-tailed Jaeger was a dark juvenile. Our return southeast was punctuated by several stops for fleeing murrelets, some identified as Craveri’s Murrelets by photographs, others let go as murrelet species (due to possibility of Guadalupe Murrelets this time of year). The Nine Mile Bank proved similar to what we’d seen on the way out, with another Minke Whale and several Pacific White-sided Dolphins, in addition to the numerous Common Dolphins we had there earlier. Between the Bank and Point Loma we had an early flyby Common Murre. This abundant northern alcid is usually seen late in the fall and early winter, and usually in small numbers this far south. So this bird was clearly on the early side. We returned to San Diego Bay just as the sun went down, giving us a glorious sunset. A great day at sea, though birding was a little slow at times – bright sun all day, winds light from the west at 3-8 kt., 1-2 ft. swell, 1 ft. wind wave, and visibility 25 miles plus. Sea surface temps. were 68-71 deg. F.

Dave Povey
www.sandiegopelagics.com

List of species (* seen in San Diego Bay only)

Mallard*
loon sp.
Western Grebe*
Eared Grebe*
Pink-footed Shearwater
Black-vented Shearwater
Leach’s Storm-Petrel
Black Storm-Petrel
Brown Booby
Brandt’s Cormorant
Double-crested Cormorant*
Brown Pelican
Great Blue Heron*
Great Egret*
Snowy Egret*
Osprey*
Red-necked Phalarope
Pomarine Jaeger
Parasitic Jaeger
Long-tailed Jaeger
Common Murre
Craveri’s Murrelet
Cassin’s Auklet
Heermann’s Gull
Western Gull
California Gull
Common Tern
Elegant Tern
Royal Tern
Rock Pigeon *
American Crow*
hummingbird sp.

Marine Mammals;
Fin Whale
Minke Whale
Pacific White-sided Dolphin
Common Dolphin
Harbor Seal
California Sea Lion

Fish;
Hammerhead Shark
California Flying Fish
Yellowfin Tuna
Striped Marlin

Dave Povey

Hello Seabirders, this is the Sept. 25, 2016 Buena Vista Audubon pelagic trip report aboard the Grande. We had forty-one passengers and 4 leaders today. This trip’s leaders were Peter Ginsburg, Jimmy McMorran, Justyn Stahl, and myself. We did a quick orientation and Capt. James did a safety talk and we were underway. The first stop was at the bait docks for the usual cormorants, pelicans, herons, egrets, and gulls. The next stop, Ballast Point, caused us to back down to take a better look at four Black Oystercatchers loafing there. Always a nice bird near the southern extreme of its range. We cruised down the buoy line but came up dry on our search for a Brown Booby. That species has become a local specialty in recent years. This summer things have changed and it’s been tougher to count on that species. In fact today we would not come up with a Brown Booby until our return trip in the evening, and those were an adult female on these same buoys, and one other Brown Booby on a distant buoy further up the channel. We did get a nice adult Parasitic Jaeger showing it’s aerial ability by an extended chase of an Elegant Tern. Lots of nice photos with the broad side of Point Loma as a backdrop. We did have a second jaeger called out back in the glare in the same area.

Offshore the birds of note were good numbers of small flocks of Red-necked Phalaropes. These birds attracted to the break and scum lines formed by the outgoing tides. Easy to tell were those lines are with phalaropes around as they often sit right along them. The outer edge of the Nine Mile Bank held most of the Black-vented Shearwaters seen today. Maybe a little further offshore than we’d expect this normally inshore species. No shortage of food out here, and most of the Black-vented Shearwaters here appeared to be full. A few even having trouble taking the air to flee the approaching boat. I saw more than one disgorge its food to lighten the load. I think all the photogs got the fill of Black-vents here. Black-vented Shearwater is our regular shearwater, present most of the year, and breeding on a few islands (mostly one) a short three hundred miles to our south. Here on the outer edge of the Nine Mile Bank we came on a pod of Common Dolphin, nothing unusual about that, but a short distance away was a dead Common Dolphin that had been bitten in half. The bite line just behind the abdominal cavity and the entire tail stalk was gone. I don’t know whether the bite was postmortem or while the animal was alive, but it was certainly a very large bite mark!

We worked our way up the bank from one raft of Black-vents to the next. We did pick up a lone Pink-footed Shearwater or two here and there. That very similar-looking shearwater to the Black-vents is larger, has a bi-colored bill, pink legs and feet, and a slower more relaxed flight style. Pink-footed Shearwaters are southern hemisphere breeders, but relatively common in our summer here. Locally their numbers are well down this year – odd as forage is as abundant as any year I’d ever seen. Perhaps they are just more widely scattered elsewhere in their non-breeding range, or the particular forage (mostly Northern Anchovy) is not suitable in some way. Near the north end of the Nine Mile Bank we found several hundred Black Storm-Petrels; not sure whether they were attempting to raft up, but they scattered as we came into the area. Then the call came in of a white-rumped storm-petrel among them. It had a short winged look, with a fluttery fight, so we felt we had something good. Photos showed a short square-ish tail with the bright white wrapping under the tail, and feet sticking out behind the tip of the tail – a Wilson’s Storm-Petrel – a rare bird off the California coast, although somewhat regular off the northern and central coast. They are relatively few records here, so local San Diego county birders were happy. My guess is that most of the birders onboard were hoping for the very similar and recently split Townsend’s Storm-Petrel. Formerly that bird was regarded as a race of Leach’s Storm-Petrel. Townsend’s have the same stubby-winged fluttery flight, mostly but not always a bright white rump (and the white doesn’t wrap under the tail), the tail is a little longer, and the legs do not extend beyond the tip of the tail. So far in our limited experience with Townsend’s Storm-Petrels they are found well offshore here, mostly out in the areas outside San Clemente Island and further west. My best guess is that in our area they would be best expected over and around the Thirty-Mile Bank.

The Thirty Mile Bank did turn up a small raft of storm-petrels – mostly Black Storm-Petrels, but a small number of Least Storm-Petrels were mixed in. Captain James found this raft the day before, so today and we drove right to it. Unfortunately, the raft was not terribly cooperative and scattered on our approach. Past experience shows that the Least Storm-Petrels are the first to disappear as these rafts split and reform, so we stopped and put out an oil slick then pulled away a short distance. That got us a little action, with maybe 15-20 Blacks and one lone Least Strom-Petrel, for decent but somewhat distant looks. We did swing back through the remaining raft a couple more times, but little by little the Least Storm-Petrels faded from the scene. Our trip down the Thirty-Mile Bank was punctuated by a sudden stop as a pair of murrelets flushed ahead of the boat. Not great looks, and photos could not positively confirm Craveri’s Murrelets. I talked to a few observers on the bow and some were certain that’s what they’d seen. One passenger had even seen a second pair just before we’d flushed these two. Craveri’s Murrelet is certainly the likely candidate, but one can’t exclude the possibility of Guadalupe Murrelets.

The return to The Nine Mile Bank crossed a good-sized area of ripped-loose floating kelp. The captain thought this was from the recent tropical storm that came up the Baja coast. We did find a few Red Phalaropes and Common Terns scattered here. We discussed the lack of some expected but missed species when first a Pomarine Jaeger came in behind the boat, then a little later a Sabine’s Gull, then, as I mentioned at the top of this report, the two Brown Boobies on the San Diego Bay Buoys. Talk about last minute pulled-out-of-the hat additions to an otherwise slow day in species numbers! Bright sun with some haze, winds light from the east early switching to 3-10kts from the west later; 2-4 ft. swell; warm sea surface temps 67-70 degrees F.

Dave Povey
www.sandiegopelagics.com

Species List (* San Diego Bay only)

Pink-footed Shearwater
Dark-bellied shearwater sp.
Black-vented Shearwater
Wilson’s Strom-Petrel
Leach’s Storm-Petrel
Black Storm-Petrel
Least Storm-Petrel
Brown Booby
Brandt’s Cormorant
Double-crested Cormorant*
Brown Pelican
Great Blue Heron*
Great Egret*
Snowy Egret*
Black-crowned Night-Heron*
Osprey 1-S.D. Bay, 1-ocean
Black Oystercatcher *
Marbled Godwit
Willet*
Red-necked Phalarope
Red Phalarope
Pomarine Jaeger
Parasitic Jaeger
Craveri’s/Guadalupe/ Scripps’s Murrelet
Cassin’s Auklet

Sabine’s Gull
Heermann’s Gull
Western Gull
California Gull
Common Tern
Elegant Tern
Rock Pigeon*
Mourning Dove
Anna’s Hummingbird
Rufous/Allen’s Hummingbird
Hummingbird sp.
Belted Kingfisher*
Peregrine Falcon *
Savannah Sparrow
Passerine sp.

Marine Mammals:
Common Dolphin
California Sea Lion

Fish:
Northern Anchovy
Broad-billed Swordfish
Striped Marlin

Hello Sea Birders, this is the trip report for the August 21, 2016 Buena Vista Audubon Pelagic trip on the Grande. Forty-two birders and 5 leaders meet at the Point Loma Sportfishing Landing, and the place was as crazy hectic as a fishing landing can ever be. We were all quite happy to board Grande and get away from dock and all the craziness there. Captain James McDaniels gave a quick safety talk and I did a brief orientation to birding offshore as we motored down the channel. Leaders were Peter Ginsburg, Jimmy McMorran, Gary Nunn, Bruce Rideout, and me, Dave Povey.

We did leave a few birds in our wake, such as an Osprey, a Caspian Tern, a few Mallards and the like. We headed straight to the bait dock area, as there had been a photo passed around of an albino cormorant there. The bait docks held the usual pelicans, cormorants, egrets, herons, gulls and the like, but no albino cormorant. We next headed to Ballast Point, passing the submarine base. Then the call went out: the albino cormorant was on the security fence, among the other Brandt’s Cormorants roosting there. We stopped and got photos of the very odd creature. Likely a full albino, with not only white feathers but a pink bill, odd eye color, and light colored legs. Nice find. Our thanks for the heads up from the birder who took the photo last week.

We then moved down the line of channel buoys to the open sea. I’d hoped to find a Brown Booby on one or more of the buoys, but all were empty today. We did have an inside-the-Point Black-vented Shearwater come through our chummed gull flock. Black-vented Shearwater is an inshore species, but usually outside the bay channel. Turns out Black-vented Shearwater was the most abundant species of seabird on the day – hundreds on the Nine Mile Bank, dozens over the San Diego Trough, and even a few equally out-of-place Black-vents on the Thirty Mile Bank. Then as we approached the San Diego “whistle” buoy, a Brown Booby did come in from behind, made a pass at the gulls, and sailed down the right side of the boat to have all hands scrambling to have a look at this speedster.

Offshore we found conditions a little tough. The NOAA weather forecast had said we’d face a steep wind wave and they were right. Not a big swell, not even much wind early, just that uncomfortable quick roll and snap that even a big stable boat like Grande feels. It took all of us awhile to get the pattern down, and as usual the worst was right around the shallows of the harbor mouth. That never seemed fair to my thinking.

We proceeded southwest toward the Mexican border and the inner edge of the Nine Mile Bank. The bank is neither nine miles out nor nine miles long, but on nautical charts the shallowest contour (100 fathoms) is exactly nine nautical miles long, and the inner edge is very close to nine nautical miles out (8.75 nm or so). So your guess about the origin of the name is as good as mine. By the way, a fathom is 6 ft. and a nautical mile is about 1.12 statute miles.

Regardless of its name, correct or otherwise, we found birds as we approached the Nine Mile Bank, and in good numbers. Pink-footed Shearwaters, a few Sooty Shearwaters, and lots of Black-vented Shearwaters, including a fair number in bright fresh plumaged. I take these to be young birds of the year, as most of the others were well worn and vaguely dirty looking. After all, they are a burrow nester, on islands some 230 nm to our south. We also had a few Black Storm-Petrels in this area. They often seem to shift inshore in the dark and move offshore as daylight arrives. We also picked a few Common Terns out of the numerous Elegant Terns. An Ashy Storm-Petrel here was a surprise, as were two Leach’s Storm-Petrels. These species are much more likely to be seen farther offshore, so these were much closer to shore than we normal expect. Perhaps this was due to a week of 20 kt west winds over these waters. Ashy Storm-Petrels are smaller than the more numerous Black Storm-Petrels, and shorter-winged, longer-tailed, and lighter overall in coloration. They also have a shallow rapid wing beat.

Leach’s Storm Petrels here are often dark-rumped, or show some smudgy white on the sides of the rump. These are our local breeders of the chapmani subspecies. These birds were not separated out as a species from nominate Leach’s Storm-Petrels in the recent A.O.U. split that removed Townsend’s and Ainley’s Storm-Petrels from the Leach’s complex. Chapman’s Leach’s have the same bounding erratic flight of nominate Leach’s, a deeply forked tail, often a pale rump or a few light feathers in the rump if well seen, and occasionally a nearly completely white rump. All three species nest on the local Islas Coronados (Coronado Islands), just across the border in Mexico. Black Storm-Petrels breed there in the thousands, Chapman’s Leach’s in the hundreds, and Ashy no more than a few dozen. All the island-breeding species seem to have benefited from the removal of feral cats from those and other islands off western Mexico.

We then picked up Brown Booby number two, which is also now a local breeder on the Coronados. The Nine Mile Bank also gave us the first of very few Cassin’s Auklets. This ubiquitous small acid is almost always expected, rarely cooperative for close study, and a specialist in its prey, choosing krill (or euphausiids, a tiny shrimp like creature) as its primary food. There is one other creature here that specializes in krill – the Blue Whale. Both Cassin’s Auklets and Blue Whales have been scarce this summer, so the best guess is that their food source has been scarce as well.

Another small alcid was a target species for many of the passengers: Craveri’s Murrelet, a Mexican breeder seen here in some years and absent or very hard to get in other years. This has been a fairly good summer for Craveri’s. Unfortunately, the sea surface conditions today were not helping us find them. We stumbled on a few and got fleeting glimpses from the bow of quickly departing pairs. Then we got lucky when one pair flew a short distance and splashed back down. When we approached the spot where they’d landed, we came in from upwind, a bird’s preferred direction for takeoff, so they dove instead. Then as luck would have it, they popped up right next to the boat. One bird sitting on the water drifted down the side of the boat only 50 ft. away – perfect! Couldn’t have asked for better. The sun and glare were behind us. This confused bird was busy looking for its partner. Lots of photos, and everyone got as good a look as we could have hoped for considering the sea conditions.

Craveri’s Murrelets breed far down the Baja Peninsula and in the Sea of Cortez. Like some other western Mexico species, they disperse out to sea to the northwest after breeding each year – some years far enough to reach our area, other years as far up the coast as Monterey Bay. But as previously mentioned, some years they are missed on this side of the border altogether. The world’s population of Craveri’s Murrelets is actually larger than the population of the Xantus’s Murrelets complex, now split into Guadalupe and Scripps’s Murrelets, which also disperse to the northwest of their breeding areas. Scripps’s Murrelets breed off northern Baja California, Mexico, and off Southern California, and are common here in the spring. Guadalupe Murrelets breed along the central Pacific coast of Baja California and are the toughest “regular” seabird species to get off California. Their dispersal area is usually well offshore, where few pelagic birding trips venture.

We left the Nine Mile Bank behind and headed for the Thirty Mile Bank. Crossing the San Diego Trough we got an escort of Common Dolphins for part of the way. The Thirty Mile Bank was pretty quiet. We did pick up Brown Booby number 3, and for a short time we had a nice mix of Chapman’s Leach’s Storm-Petrels. Some observers were excited by the few white-rumped Leach’s in hopes of getting the newly split Townsend’s Storm-Petrel. Townsend’s are easily mistaken for a Wilson’s Storm-Petrel, but are smaller, darker, more stubby-winged, have less fork in the tail, a bright white rump patch that does not wrap under the tail, and shorter legs, so the feet don’t extend beyond the tip of the tail. They are best identified by photo, but Townsend’s does have a distantly different “feel”. Anyway, looking through many photos, nothing could be definitively separated out as a for-sure Townsend’s Storm-Petrel. This species is a breeder on a couple of islets off Guadalupe Island, Mexico.

We turned south east to return to the Nine Mile Bank. The north end of the bank certainly had more life than the waters to the west – enough that we stopped and put out an oil slick. We did get a Black Storm-Petrel and yet another Leach’s Storm-Petrel to come in, but our persistent gull flock keep other stormies a away. We did add to the Craveri’s Murrelet count here by two and had our 4th and last Brown Booby on the day.

So an interesting day. Not the best sea conditions, but manageable. Maybe a little disappointing in numbers of species, with the absence of any hint of a Least Storm-Petrel among the negatives, but with good looks at most species and quite a few lifers for many of the participants.

Species list for the day
(* species seen only in San Diego Bay):

Mallard*
Western Grebe*
Pink-footed Shearwater
Sooty Shearwater
Black-vented Shearwater
Leach’s Storm-Petrel
Ashy Storm-Petrel
Black Storm-Petrel
Brown Booby
Brandt’s Cormorant
Double-crested Cormorant
Brown Pelican
Great Blue Heron*
Great Egret*
Snowy Egret*
Osprey*
Red-necked Phalarope
Craveri’s Murrelet
Cassin’s Auklet
Heermann’s Gull
Western Gull
Caspian Tern*
Common Tern
Forster’s Tern*
Royal Tern*
Elegant Tern
Rock Pigeon*
Barn Swallow*

Marine Mammals:

Common Dolphin
California Sea Lion

Hello Sea birders,

This is the trip report for the Buena Vista Audubon and Grande pelagic, June 12, 2016. The trip departed from San Diego Bay with 16 passengers and 6 leaders under overcast skies and mild breezes. Leaders for this trip were Tom Blackman, Todd McGrath, Gary Nunn, Dave Povey, Bruce Rideout, and Matt Sadowski. Although the passenger load was much lighter than usual, Capt. James McDaniels made the decision to go as a pre-fishing season shake down for his recent boatyard work. Our thanks to him for his unwavering support of our pelagic birding trips offshore.

Our first stop was the San Diego Bay bait docks for the usual suspects: pelicans, cormorants, herons, egrets and gulls, along with the lazing California Sea Lions. Nice photo ops here as always. We drove by Ballast Point, named for the cobbles on its beach once used as ballast on the sailing ships using this port. The beach had a fair number of adult Heermann’s Gulls loafing, an oddly late or perhaps unable to migrate Pacific Loon in the water, and a few Barn Swallows overhead. The line of channel buoys leading out of the harbor were empty. We had come to expect Brown Boobies to use them as resting spots over the last couple of years. This year things are clearly different, as we’ve had no boobies on these buoys for the last two trips and only one on a previous April scouting trip. In fact today we saw only a single Brown Booby, an immature out near the 30 Mile Bank. In comparison this trip last year had 23. Something has clearly changed, whether water temperature, food source, or other unknown factors, sightings of this species is down.

Once we cleared the “Whistle” Buoy we angled off to the southwest to intersect the 9 Mile Bank and the Mexican border. This segment of the trip was marked by a few Black-vented Shearwaters, Brown Pelicans, Brandt’s Cormorants, Heermann’s and Western Gulls, lots of Elegant Terns, and a small number of Least Terns. We also had a rather inshore Black Storm-Petrel and Cassin’s Auklet (neither one close to the boat), and both species again further out. Black Storm-Petrels were present in good numbers, and were fairly well seen by all. Cassin’s Auklets were rather sparse and non very cooperative today.

At the inner edge of the 9 Mile Bank we turned northwest and followed along that edge. We picked up our first of many Sooty Shearwaters, but the best sighting was pair of murrelets that seemed promising. Normally spring murrelets are Scripps’s Murrelets. They breed on the local islands, and return here from their winter areas in February and March and depart to the northwest in June and July. These two murrelets were a bit different: stiff raised tails that were a bit pointed in the center, perhaps a little darker above, a little longer billed, and as photos showed, with darkish underwings and a shoulder mark on the sides of the breast (the last two characteristics seen best in photos of birds in flight). These were two Craveri’s Murrelets, nice birds to get for Southern California. Craveri’s Murrelets are a Baja breeder, and eruptive post-breeding disperser to the north. Uncommon here some years absent completely in others. Expected arrival here is usually late July and August, some years not until September. In 2014 we had two Craveri’s Murrelets on this same trip (June 7th that year). Then last year we had 20 on the June 14th trip. Something had clearly changed. The most likely culprit is the warm water “blob” in the north Pacific and strong El Nino on the equator, both prominent then, now on a rapid decline. Mexico has also made a concerted effort to remove various non-native pest species on their breeding islands. That should bode well for the overall population of Craveri’s Murrelets and other species of breeding seabirds there.

We did get on pair of Scripps’s Murrelets not long afterward on the outer edge of the 9 Mile Bank. They are a bit larger, perhaps 10%. They sit just a bit higher in the water, which exposes a little more white, the bill is a little shorter, the white comes up to the gape of the bill (but under the eye), and most conspicuously, a bright white underwing lining in flight. Scripps’s Murrelets are part of the old Xantus’s Murrelet complex. The “Northern form “scrippsi is now Scripps’s Murrelet and the “southern form” hypoleucus is now called Guadalupe Murrelet. We do get Guadalupe Murrelets here, though I feel it’s one of the hardest “regular” occurring species to find inside the Channel Islands. Guadalupe Murrelet is perhaps the easiest of these three Baja and Southern California murrelets to separate at sea, as the white wrapping up around the eye is fairly conspicuous. Any first time birder here would be prudent to study those murrelets before any pelagic trips in the Southern California Bight. Photographs are always a big assist in identifying these species. I have had one extended 5 day pelagic with all three species, but to do that on a single day trip would be exceptional.

The middle of the 9 Mile Bank had lots of life, and the outer edge even more. We got a nice marine mammal show there, with a breeching Humpback Whale – one of at least two or three – a distant Blue Whale, and loads of Common Dolphins. We saw large spots of baitfish on the Grande’s fish meters; most marked by diving Sooty Shearwaters, Elegant Terns, Brown Pelicans and others. One bait ball on the meter extended for more than a hundred yards. Captain James commented that it was larger than any he’d ever seen. Bait was plentiful and smaller bait balls on the meter were seen throughout the day. West of the 9 Mile Bank we found some small Black Storm-Petrel rafts. Most of these had 25-50 birds, and one was maybe close to 200. We had seen a few scattered Black Storm-Petrels inshore, and we would have scattered stormies the rest of the afternoon. Several of these rafts had a few of the smaller Ashy Storm-Petrels. One raft may have had as many as six. Always a nice find off San Diego, as Ashy Storm-Petrel nears the southern limits of their breeding range here. Their numbers locally are small in proportion to the abundant Black Storm-Petrel, and they tend to be rather boat shy.

A Red-billed Tropicbird, one of the more charismatic pelagics, was next – found by Gary Nunn. This bird was on the water close in to the 30 Mile Bank, some 23 nautical miles west of Point Loma. I think I can safely say every photographer on the boat got their Red-billed Tropicbird shot here, but just to be sure, we did a short chase to get back on the bird a second time. Red-billed Tropicbird is another Mexican species. Their numbers here are always small, so we savor every one we find. The last two years were off years for Red-billed Tropicbird locally. I saw only three here in perhaps 40-45 days offshore – odd, as it was in the midst of a warm water cycle. Perhaps they travelled up beyond us into areas not covered by birders. At the other end of the scale, in 2013 I saw 10 for the season here, and a roaring 21 on the more distant offshore 5 day pelagic trip to the self edge to our west.

We continued north along the 30 Mile Bank, and except for the previously mentioned Brown Booby and a couple of Pink-footed Shearwaters, nothing new was added, and no additional storm-petrel rafts were found. We turned back to the east and set course for the north end of the 9 Mile Bank. The numbers of rafting Sooty Shearwaters increased and started to have a small mix of Black-vented, and Pink-footed Shearwaters. Then Todd McGrath called out a Manx Shearwater in the middle of one of the rafts. Fortunately, most folks on the bow got on the bird before the raft scattered. We did chase but did not re-find the bird. Tom Blackman got some excellent photos to prove our sighting. Likely the best bird of the day, and out of the “known” season for San Diego, which seems to be winter– mostly March. This bird was seen about 14 nm west of Ocean Beach. Nice sighting!

Black-vented Shearwater was once thought to be a race or sub species of Manx Shearwater. Before the two species were split, a small but regular number of “white-vented” birds were seen, and as more pelagic trips visit offshore the sightings, though still rare, have become regular. Breeding is now suspected somewhere in the North Pacific Ocean of this otherwise Alantic Ocean shearwater. While we were all looking at the Manx Shearwater, a Minke Whale surfaced quite close in. Not always the easiest whale to get good views of, this one surfaced two boat lengths off our bow. We pretty much made a beeline back to San Diego Bay after that, with good numbers of Sooty Shearwaters along the way, and more Black-vented Shearwaters and Elegant Terns near the Point.

Species List

Pacific Loon (S.D.Bay)
Pink-footed Shearwater
Sooty Shearwater
MANX SHEARWATER
Black-vented Shearwater
Ashy Storm-Petrel
Black Storm-Petrel
RED-BILLED TROPICBIRD
Brown Booby
Brandt’s Cormorant
Double-crested Cormorant
Brown Pelican
Great Blue Heron (S.D.Bay)
Great Egret (S.D.Bay)
Snowy Egret (S.D.Bay)
Black-crowned Night-Heron (S.D.Bay)
Scripps’s Murrelet
CRAVERI’S MURRELET
Cassin’s Auklet
Heermann’s Gull
Western Gull
Least Tern
Caspain Tern (S.D.Bay)
Elegant Tern
Rock Pigeon, feral (S.D.Bay)
Barn Swallow (S.D.Bay)

Marine mammals

Humpback Whale
Blue Whale
Minke Whale
Common Dolphin
California Sea Lion
Harbor Seal

Dave Povey
www.sandiegopelagics.com.

Hello Sea birders,

This is the trip report for the May 21, 2016 Buena Vista Audubon sponsored pelagic. Thirty-four passengers and seven leaders boarded the 85 ft. Ocean Odyssey Captained by Rick Scott. Today’s trip leaders were Tom Blackman, Greg Gillson, Peter Ginsburg, Gary Nunn, Dave Povey, Matt Sadowski, and Justyn Stahl. The Ocean Odyssey’s regular duty, when not fishing, is taking school kids out on marine biology study classes. Today was her first try at pelagic birding, and she and her crew did a very nice job. The weather was partly cloudy and somewhat breezy. Seas were mixed direction 2-3 ft. swell, with a 2-3 ft. wind wave. Air tempatures were a mild 65-70 F. Sea Surface temp 63-66 F.

After a brief onshore orientation, and some quick looks at a couple of the local resident/escaped Lilac-crowned Parrots, we shoved off from the Fisherman’s Landing Dock to head out into the main channel of San Diego Bay. The Commercial Basin to our stern was full of all three local species of large terns. Most were Caspian, with several Elegants, and at least one Royal Tern. It was fun to pick up the differing calls as they were all quite vocal. We made a beeline out to sea as last minute changes to docking locations had held up our departure. The only thing of note here was a good number of Elegant Terns feeding on, of all things, the pelagic Red Crabs that are stacked up just outside Ballast Point. I learned something new – that Elegant Terns, or any tern for that matter, ate these Red Crabs. No mistaking it, Elegant Tern after Elegant Tern went in to the water to come up with these “50 cent sized” bright red crabs. They then positioned them in their bills and down the hatch. I saw no other species of tern taking them here. I did see a Western Gull pick up one, and I have seen gulls of several species, such as California and Heermann’s, feeding on them in the past. The Red Crabs are normally found in the warm water off the Mexican west coast but invade California in some warm water years. They seemed to be particularly abundant here the last two years. Elegant Terns are also primarily a Mexican species, most breeding on islands in the Sea of Cortez. So Elegant Terns feeding on Red Crabs perhaps shouldn’t be a surprise. There is some talk of a breeding failure of Elegants and Heermann’s Gull due to lack of sardines in the Sea of Cortez. We have not seen any numbers of Heermann’s here yet, but there are 30,000 pairs of Elegant Terns in the salt works, where smaller numbers usually breed, and more arrive daily. We certainly saw the results of that today. My view from the wheelhouse was only about 180 degrees and any scan of the horizon had multiple Elegants all day long and at all distances offshore. We also had a number of spots of feeding Pacific Bonito, a small tuna, feeding on Northern Anchovy, just to the west edge of the 9 Mile Bank. The anchovies were balled up and pushed to the surface, so each of these spots had a cloud of Elegant Terns overhead. In fact, the three main bird species on these small anchovies were Sooty Shearwater, Brown Pelican, and Elegant Tern. The balled up anchovy were sufficiently dense that the Brown Pelicans simply would swim over and dip a pouch full. They would only back off only when the bonito feeding frenzy became too violent.
Not a lot of other bird species here – a lone Northern Fulmar, a few Pink-footed Shearwaters, a couple of pairs of Scripps’s Murrelets (one pair gave us nice looks), some Western Gulls, and one Brown Booby sitting on the water among the pelicans looking unsure of what to do. I think Brown Boobies tend to feed on the larger sized baitfish, such a sardines, small mackerel, and the like. The upswing in small anchovies and the downturn of sardine populations here may not help them out. This spring’s trips have had a general decline in sightings of Brown Boobies off San Diego, at least north of the border.

We had seen a very few Black-vented Shearwaters as we cleared the bay, and again on our return in the afternoon. Most of them are now on the breeding grounds off the central part of Baja California. Certainly they are just fine feeding on anchovy, but the population is elsewhere right now. There were some Common Dolphins on the 9 Mile Bank. I am not sure whether these were on the anchovy or after the small bonito.

The Captain was impressed with the amount of baitfish he saw along the 9 Mile Bank and for the whole rest of the day, clear to the 30 Mile Bank. The 9 Mile Bank did produce a small storm-petrel raft. Perhaps four hundred Black Storm-Petrels gathered into a tight resting group on the surface. As we maneuvered to get a look at them Gary Nunn called out a possible Fork-tailed Storm-Petrel. Unfortunately it did not seem to be with the raft, and disappeared before more than one or two others got on it. To add to the confusion, there was at least one Ashy Storm-Petrel photographed here, but not called, so some may have mistaken it for the Fork-tailed Storm-Petrel. We stuck with the raft for a couple of turns and found only Black Storm-Petrels.

The San Diego Trough westbound was quiet, with another Northern Fulmar, a few Pink-footed and Sooty Shearwaters, and traveling Elegant Terns. Closer to the 30 Mile Bank we picked up more Black Storm-Petrels and a few more of the species we’d seen in the trough. We drove up the inside of the 30 looking for the large storm-petrel raft(s) we have found in that area in the past. While searching, we saw a distant tall whale spout, so in need of something of interest we diverted off course. Turns out we worked our way up to a Blue Whale. This turned out to be a pretty cooperative animal, but as we closed the distance, a call went out that a Black-footed Albatross was coming in from the stern. That bird came right in and sat on the water less than a boat length away. Meanwhile, the whale that had been ignored decided to surface about three boat lengths away. It was fun to watch the wonderful dilemma of what to look at first: Blue Whale on the starboard or Black-footed Albatross on the port stern. We hope everyone got looks at each as we drifted along. Very nice.

We did proceed further north, but with little to show for it. We did get a little uptick in storm-petrel activity, and even had a couple of small clusters on the water. A Leach’s Storm-Petrel was reported in this area, and two more Ashy Storm-Petrels were seen at a distance. We gave up then and headed east the back down the outer edge of the 9 Mile Bank.

We did get more shearwaters, a small number of Red-necked Phalaropes, more Scripps’s Murrelets, and the first numbers of Cassin’s Auklets. We also saw good numbers of Elegant Terns headed west toward the area that we’d just come through. Who knows what that’s about? Certainly there were plenty of baitfish on the meter out there. Perhaps that stuff comes up to the surface near dark.
The ride down the 9 Mile Bank was likely our most comfortable of the day and the sun was warm….nap time right? The shout went up of a jaeger, then quickly changed to Skua. A South Polar Skua had snuck in and attacked the Western Gulls chummed to the popcorn. This was our second South Polar Skua for this spring – right in the normal arrival range here. The other South Polar Skua was seen on April 30th; early by a couple of weeks.

We searched the middle of the 9 Mile Bank for the storm-petrel raft we’d found in the morning, and though we saw scattered Black Storm-Petrels all the way back to within 5 miles of Point Loma, no rafting stormies were found. We did find a small pod of “offshore” Bottle-nosed Dolphin. These are larger and darker than the Bottle-nosed Dolphin often seen right along the beach, and may differ genetically.

We returned to San Diego Bay to see an adult male Surf Scoter close to North Island, and with a little time remaining checked out the bait docks for the usual pelicans, cormorants, herons, egrets, gulls, and pile of California Sea Lions.
We pulled into the landing tired, sunburned, and happy to be home.

P.S. News on the fishing front was that the first Albacore of the season was caught today. The last two summers Albacore were being caught off Oregon. This is a cooler water tuna often caught here in cooler ocean water cycles. A harbinger of things to come, or just a vagrant like some of the avian migrants?

Dave Povey
www.sandiegopelagics.com

Bird species list;

San Diego Bay

Mallard
Surf Scoter
Western Grebe
Clark’s Grebe
Brandt’s Cormorant
Double-crested Cormorant
Brown Pelican
Great Blue Heron
Great Egret
Snowy Egret
Black-crowned Night- Heron
Heermann’s Gull
Western Gull
California Gull
Least Tern
Caspian Tern
Forster’s Tern
Royal Tern
Elegant Tern
Rock Pigeon (feral)
Lilac crowned Parrot
Barn Swallow

U.S. Waters

Brant
Pacific Loon
Common Loon
BLACK-FOOTED ALBATROSS
Northern Fulmar
Pink-footed Shearwater
Sooty Shearwater
Black-vented Shearwater

FORK-TAILED STORM-PETREL
Leach’s Storm-Petrel
Ashy Storm-Petrel
Black-storm-Petrel
Brown Booby
Brandt’s Cormorant
Brown Pelican
Red-necked Phalarope
SOUTH POLAR SKUA
Scripps’s Murrelet
Cassin’s Auklet
Heermann’s Gull
Western Gull
California Gull
Least Tern
Forster’s Tern
Elegant Tern

Mexican waters (7 mins.)

Brown Booby
Brown Pelican
Cassin’s Auklet
Western Gull
Elegant Tern

Marine mammals

Blue Whale
Common Dolphin
Bottle-nosed Dolphin
California Sea Lion

Fish

Blue Shark
Mola mola
Northern Anchovy
Pacific Bonito
invertebrates
Pelagic Red Crabs