August 28, 2011 trip report

Shearwater Journeys reported a GREAT-WINGED PETREL on their Monterey Bay trip two days prior to our outing. When word got out we had a last minute rush on signups so there was the expectation that we would look for it in the same area it was reported from.

That was just fine with me. I don’t need an excuse to spend more time in Santa Cruz County waters.  Even Don Roberson was willing to venture outside Monterey County, a Great-winged would be a state bird for him.

We were psyched up as we pulled away from the dock but all in all it was a tough day as far as visibility was concerned. It was down to less than a quarter mile for much of the trip and at times it was difficult to tell where the horizon was. The gray ocean met the gray sky seamlessly.

Spotter Tim Amaral's ablilty to speak Japanese finally came in handy. I think this was the first time that we have had a pair of birders who hailed from that country.

I have to say I don’t recall a trip at this time of year having these kind of species totals. We saw only one each of BULLER’S and PINK-FOOTED SHEARWATERS but we did see thousands of SOOTY SHEARWATERS. Skipper Richard Ternullo termed this trip the Sooty Shearwater Study Tour.

(photos by Tom Grey, copyright) 

Sooty Shearwater

Miraculously we did manage to find a flock of storm-petrels near Cabrillo Canyon and picked some BLACK STORM-PETRELS out from amongst the many ASHY STORM-PETRELS and a bonus was a single FORK-TAILED STORM-PETREL that approached the boat quite closely.

Jaegers were in short supply with only a few POMARINES for the day.

We had some nice views of ARCTIC , COMMON and ELEGANT TERNS and saw lots of both RED and RED-NECKED PHALAROPES.

Red Phalarope

We stopped the boat for the largest OCEAN SUNFISH/MOLA MOLA I’ve ever seen.

We covered a little more than 70 miles total. Here is the map of our route:

http://share.gps.motionxlive.com/shr/x/kmz/8572026ea2ed0ecea772c52a0b945109

Thanks go out to our spotters Matthew Dodder, Bruce Elliot, Don Roberson, Tim Amaral and to Alex Rinkert for chumming. All photos Tom Grey copyright

eBird report by Don Roberson:

Monterey Bay pelagic (SCZ Co.), Santa Cruz, US-CA Aug 28, 2011 9:50 AM - 1:10 PM Protocol: Traveling 25.0 mile(s) Comments:     aboard 'Pt Sur Clipper with R. Ternullo, skipper; leaders R. Wolfe, M. Dodder, T. Amaral, B. Elliott, and me; chummer Alex Rinkert; with Glen Tepke, Peter White, Kris Dunlap, Tom Edell, Tom Grey, Maggie Smith, Kenneth Peterson, Stan Snyder, Richard Norton, Richard & Pamela Clark, and more. Most of day very foggy -- drizzly wet fog into early afternoon but otherwise very calm seas with some swell, visibility often poor, especially on SCZ portion of trip. Route was Monterey harbor to Pt. Pinos and WSW to 8 mi W of Pt. Joe, then NW into SCZ portion of bay, checking Soquel Canyon and "the fingers", then east back to middle of Bay and east to Salinas R. mouth, back along nearshore coast to harbor. This is one of 3 checklists for the trip: inshore portions (both a.m. & p.m.), Monterey Co. portion >2 nmi offshore (both a.m. & p.m.), and Santa Co. portion at midday.  

(Santa Cruz county, Monterey inshore, Monterey offshore)

Common Loon 0,1,0

Black-footed Albatross  3, 0, 8

Northern Fulmar  6,1, 7

Sooty Shearwater  15000, 300, 5000     huge flock after flock of Sooties sitting on flat calm sea in the fog; I guesstimated avg 300-600/flock and 30+ flocks, plus many additional birds. So 15K seemed reasonable
Buller's Shearwater 0, 0, 1
Pink-footed Shearwater 0, 0, 1

Brandt’s Cormorant 0, 500, 1

Pelagic Cormorant 0, 2, 0

Fork-tailed Storm-Petrel  1,0,0

Ashy Storm-Petrel  300

Black Storm-Petrel  20

Brown Pelican  1, 0, 5

Least Sandpiper 0,0,1

Red-necked Phalarope  50, 10, 150

Red Phalarope  100,0, 150

Sabine’s Gull 0,0,4

Heermann’s Gull 0, 20, 5

Western Gull  100, 100

California Gull  10, 20

Arctic Tern 0,0,3

Common/Arctic Tern  0, 2

Elegant Tern  1, 5, 1

Pomarine Jaeger 3

    mid-Bay, far offshore

Common Murre  500, 50, 300

Pigeon Guillemot 4, 0, 1 about 6 nmi W of Pt. Pinos

Cassin's Auklet  10, 1, 10

Rhinoceros Auklet  40, 0, 20

Also:

Humpback Whale

Dall’s Porpoise

Harbor Porpoise

California Sea Lion

Elephant Seal

Harbor Seal

Mola Mola/Ocean Sunfish

Egg Yolk Jellies

Aug. 20, 2011 Trip Report

Trip Report for Aug. 20, 2012        Visit us on Facebook for more photos

Plenty of room

 Photos copyright MartijnVerdoes/agami.nl

This was a fun trip. Monterey Seabirds has done more than a hundred trips and some I remember more than others.  It is not just the megararity finds that burn into my memory it is the group.

Group dynamics vary but when the chemistry is right it makes for a memorable trip and this one will stick in my mind because of its local flavor.  Thanks to all you local birders for your show of support.

As planned for my birthday gift to myself we headed straight to Santa Cruz waters at Soquel Canyon to try and find a first county record for Hawaiian Petrel in Santa Cruz County. I can dream right? Well that’s all it was today but I’m gonna keep at it.

From the Soquel Hole we paralleled the coast up to the fingers complex of canyons. In the vicinity of Cabrillo Canyon we came upon a flock of storm-petrels sitting on the water comprised 500 ASHY STORM-PETRELS (that could be 5% of the world population), 6 BLACK STORM-PETRELS and a few FORK-TAILED STORM-PETRELS.

Mostly Ashy Storm-petrel flock on the water

Ashy Storm-Petrel

We did ok with cetaceans considering the whale watch boats have been having some difficulty locating any humpback or blue whales lately. We got a call from Kenny Stagnaro on the Velocity that he had a pod of transient type KILLER WHALES that had just killed a sea lion. We had nice views of a pod of four adult females with one youngster. They were in the post feeding playful mode when we arrived thus we were greeted by one animal doing a headstand underwater while waving her flukes at us.

Transient-type Killer Whale calf

We also managed to get some decent looks at a MINKE WHALE by following its fluke prints in the glassy calm water and a BASKING SHARK was seen by some of those on the bow.

Minke Whale

We had a nice showing of LONG-TAILED JAEGERS and saw a few POMARINE and PARASITICS pursuing the migrant COMMON TERNS and SABINE’S GULLS.

Long-tailed Jaeger

Strangely we saw only one BULLER’S SHEARWATER and skipper Richard Ternullo reports seeing only one in the last 10 days, they must be outside bay waters. Lots of SOOTY and PINK-FOOTED SHEARWATERS around.

Just a couple of weeks ago there were approximately 100 Humpback Whales feeding over the canyon one morning, and they were gone the next. Apparently they have moved offshore. We saw only a few CASSIN’S AUKLETS and only one RHINOCEROS AUKLET so these krill eating birds are somewhere outside of the bay too.

Right now getting offshore is where seabirders want to be and we’ve got just the trip set up to do that next Saturday, August 27. This 12 hour offshore Albacore grounds trip will leave at 5:30 and return 12 hours later. If conditions merit we will attempt to get out 40-50 miles to where there is a hard break in the water temp. Call 831 375-4658 to reserve a spot or you can do it on the website at http://www.montereyseabirds.com

Right now we are in need of a few more people to run this trip. So where are you intrepid birders? We’ve seen STREAKED SHEARWATER (3 times), WEDGE-TAILED SHEARWATER, MANX SHEARWATER, CRAVERI’S MURRELETS, HORNED PUFFIN and last year we had the third North American (and hemisphere) record of GREAT-WINGED PETREL.

We’re offering a special promo for this trip and the eight-hour trip the following day see the Monterey Seabirding blog for details:

Pink-footed Shearwater (top) and Black-footed Albies

Coming back along Cannery Row we were inundated with BROWN PELICANS who landed on the boat and begged for a handout while perched on the railing and back of seats. These Brown Pelicans are everywhere this year!

Stowaway

Let me swallow that camera

Special thanks to our spotters Matthew Dodder, Martijn Verdoes, Blake Matheson, Mike Johns, skipper Richard Ternullo, deckhand Mike Merlo and chummer Alex Rinkert!

Species totals compiled by Blake Matheson:

Monterey County waters, Santa Cruz Waters

Black-footed Albatross  15 , 50

Northern Fulmar  30, 100

Pink-footed Shearwater  45, 125

Sooty Shearwater  80, 2,250

Ashy Storm-Petrel  1 , 500

Fork-tailed Storm-Petrel 0, 3

Black Storm-Petrel 0, 6

Brandt's Cormorant  12, 2

Brown Pelican  30, 25

Red-necked Phalarope  40 , 50

Red Phalarope 0, 5

phalarope sp.  10

Sabine's Gull  12 , 30

Western Gull  80, 175

California Gull  125, 250

Heermann’s Gull 100, 200

Common Tern  2 , 7

Elegant Tern  2 , 0

Pomarine Jaeger  1 , 8

Parasitic Jaeger  1 , 5

Long-tailed Jaeger  2, 5

Common Murre  120 , 200

Cassin's Auklet  8 , 10

Rhinoceros Auklet  1, 1

Brown-headed Cowbird  1

Killer Whale 5

Minke Whale 1

California Sea Lion

Northern Fur Seal

Elephant Seal

Harbor Porpoise

Basking Shark

Egg Yolk Jellies

Chrysora Jellies

Inshore waters Pt. Pinos to Harbor:

Northern Fulmar  3

Sooty Shearwater  50 

Brandt's Cormorant  325 

Pelagic Cormorant  35 

Brown Pelican  150 

Great Egret  5 

Black Oystercatcher  2 

Black Turnstone  6 

Surfbird  1 

Red-necked Phalarope  15 

Heermann's Gull  200 

Western Gull  250 

California Gull  350 

Elegant Tern  9 

Common Murre  65 

Pigeon Guillemot  12 

Rock Pigeon  15 

Barn Swallow  1 

Killer Whale 5

Minke Whale 1

California Sea Lion
Elephant Seal
Northern Fur Seal
Harbor Porpoise

Northern Fulmar