September 5, 2009 Trip Report
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Saturday September 5, 2009
This charter for the Santa Cruz Bird Club was special in a couple of ways. Firstly it was a real pleasure to have so many friends from the bird club on board. In that many of us are familiar with one another from prior land based field trips, club meetings and carpools there was a neat feeling of being among friends, a sense of camaraderie. The other special thing was the price. With the charter, members laid out all of $66 per person!
The darned northwest winds have been persistent the last couple of weeks but they abated and made for greasy calm conditions that were conducive to finding the storm-petrel flocks. We made a beeline for the county line and crossed over into Santa Cruz County around 9am in the vicinity of Soquel Canyon. We headed for the Hump where we began seeing both BLACK and ASHY STORM-PETRELS. In the vicinity of Cabrillo Canyon we found the area where the Ashies were rafting up and everyone got to see the flocks. Spotter Rod Norden recounted how the number of storm-petrels we were seeing was a mere fraction of what he recalled from the eighties.
We also had some gripping views of a COMMON TERN that circled the boat for several minutes.
Interestingly the deluge of Long-tailed Jaegers we'd been seeing the last few weeks was shut off. We did not see a single LTJA on the day.
And for the second trip in a row we had a difficult time finding any BULLER'S SHEARWATERS except for a single unhealthy looking bird that sat on the water and scarcely moved. Strange.
Marine mammal highlight was the pair of BLUE WHALES we crossed paths with off of Pt. Pinos on the way back to the dock. We also had some awesome looks at NORTHERN RIGHT WHALE DOLPHINS riding our bow and they had some awesome looks at us as well.
As we passed Pt. Pinos the top of the kelp canopy was covered with at least a thousand ELEGANT TERNS.
In all we covered 63.7 miles of water.
Thanks to SCBC field trip leaders Steve Gerow, Bob Ramer, Rod Norden and Phil Brown for spotting and to Alex Rinkert for chumming.
Photos in the trip report are by SCBC member Wendy Naruo on her second pelagic trip.
Species seen:
Monterey / Santa Cruz Counties
Black-footed Albatross 12/42
Northern Fulmar 7/10
Pink-footed Shearwater 20/15
Bullers Shearwater 1/0
Sooty Shearwater 275/250
Ashy Storm-Petrel 5/2500
Black Storm-Petrel 0/15
Brown Pelican 20/8
Brandts Cormorant 200/0
Pelagic Cormorant 4/0
Red Phalarope 1/4
Red-necked Phalarope 60/36
Sabine's Gull 25/12
Heermann's Gull 75/60
Western Gull 50/20
California Gull 40/25
Common Tern 0/1
Elegant Tern 1000/0
Pomarine Jaeger 10/ 9
Parasitic Jaeger 5/2
jaeger sp. 2/2
Common Murre 40/90
Pigeon Guillemot 3/0
Cassin's Auklet 12/10
Rhinoceros Auklet 30/20
Black Turnstone 4/0
Kingfisher 1/0
Marine Mammals
Sea Otter
California Sea Lion
Northern Fur Seal
Harbor Seal
Humpback Whale
Blue Whale
Harbor Porpoise
Pacific White-sided Dolphin
Northern Right Whale Dolphin
See the Google Earth image showing locations of points along the track in red and county boundaries in white (opens in new window).
Roger Wolfe for Monterey Seabirds
Species mentioned
Northern Right Whale Dolphin · Pacific White-sided Dolphin · Black-footed Albatross · Pink-footed Shearwater · Red-necked Phalarope · Buller's Shearwater · California Sea Lion · Black Storm-Petrel · Long-tailed Jaeger · Ashy Storm-Petrel · Pelagic Cormorant · Rhinoceros Auklet · Northern Fur Seal · Sooty Shearwater · Parasitic Jaeger · Pigeon Guillemot · Northern Fulmar · Black Turnstone · Pomarine Jaeger · Heermann's Gull · California Gull · Cassin's Auklet · Humpback Whale · Brown Pelican · Red Phalarope · Sabine's Gull · Western Gull · Elegant Tern · Common Murre · Common Tern · Harbor Seal · Blue Whale