Shearwater Journey's pelagic trip from Monterey Bay today was extremely "birdy"! The highlight, in the late afternoon, was finding the "mother lode" of storm-petrels in one extremely long raft: 7000 ASHY STORM-PETRELS, 30 BLACK STORM-PETRELS, and 5 WILSON'S STORM-PETRELS, all in SANTA CRUZ COUNTY! This is the largest storm-petrel raft for this fall season that we have seen. And, we plan to head for it tomorrow!
The morning began with TWO HARLEQUIN DUCKS in the harbor, and all of the usual suspects. Heading south to Bird Rock, we encountered quite a feeding spectacle of 2000 PINK-FOOTED SHEARWATERS and about 1200 SOOTY SHEARWATERS. It was interesting that the day tallied more Pink-foots than sootys. Among these, we also found 175 BULLER'S and one FLESH-FOOTED. The shearwaters were feeding in distinct flocks, accompanied by HUMPBACK WHALES, PACIFIC WHITE-SIDED and NORTHERN RIGHT WHALE DOLPHINS, CALIFORNIA SEA LIONS, Brown Pelicans, Elegant Terns, Brandt's Cormorants, and a few COMMON MURRES, RHINOCEROS AUKLETS, and RED-NECKED PHALAROPES. We visited flock after flock after flock, sometimes sitting on the water, completely stuffed with food, and sometimes in active pursuit of food! It was quite a sight. Things lulled for a bit as we headed north to the petrel grounds, but once the main flock was found, we were once again very busy. Notable today was that we did not find any Pigeon Guillemots or Cassin's Auklets. The sea surface temperature was a fairly constant 59F.
Spaces are still available on tomorrow's ALBACORE GROUNDS trip, which departs at 5:30 am, sharp, and returns at 5:30 pm. And, spaces are available on both our Sunday, September 14th, and Monday, September 15th trips. Please call or email me for a reservation. Please call only until 9 pm this evening.
We thank all of the birders who traveled from near, and very far to join us on this great day. The leaders today were: Clay Kempf, Brian Sullivan, Steve Howell, and Debra Shearwater.
The complete species list follows:
SEPTEMBER 12, 2008 MONTEREY BAY WITH SHEARWATER JOURNEYS
COMMON LOON-1 in the harbor
WESTERN GREBE-1
BLACK-FOOTED ALBATROSS- 18
NORTHERN FULMAR- 1
PINK-FOOTED SHEARWATER- 2000
FLESH-FOOTED SHEARWATER- 1
BULLER'S SHEARWATER- 175
SOOTY SHEARWATER- 1200
WILSON'S STORM-PETREL- 5
ASHY STORM-PETREL- 7000
BLACK STORM-PETREL- 30
BROWN PELICAN- 60
BRANDT'S CORMORANT- 200
PELAGIC CORMORANT- 3
HARLEQUIN DUCK- 2
WHIMBREL- 12
BLACK TURNSTONE- 3
WILLET- 2
DOWITCHER sp.- 4
RED-NECKED PHALAROPE- 50
SOUTH POLAR SKUA- 5
POMARINE JAEGER- 6
PARASITIC JAEGER- 5
PARASITIC/LONG-TAILED JAEGER- 1
HEERMANNS' GULL- 200
CALIFORNIA GULL- 30
WESTERN GULL- 300
SABINE'S GULL- 1
ELEGANT TERN- 40
COMMON TERN- 6
COMMON MURRE- 45
RHINOCEROS AUKLET- 70
SEA OTTER- 6
CALIFORNIA SEA LION- 150
HARBOR SEAL- 12
HUMPBACK WHALE- 22
COMMON DOLPHIN- 2
NORTHERN RIGHT WHALE DOLPHIN- 80
PACIFIC WHITE-SIDED DOLPHIN- 300
DALL'S PORPOISE- 12
OCEAN SUNFISH- 6
Shearwaters forever,
Debra
Debra Shearwater
Shearwater Journeys, Inc.
PO Box 190
Hollister, CA 95024
831.637.8527
www.shearwaterjourneys.com
*Antarctica, South Georgia, & The Falkland Islands, January 5-24, 2010*
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