HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!
If you are a seabirder, and have not been here (Monterey Bay, etc, CA), you MUST go!
If you have not been here in decades, like me, you MUST go back, soon!
This area is reminiscent in many ways of the spectacular Cape Town offshore areas around the Benguela Current, and that is remarkable.
Here is my first draft summary of these three 2014 trips on September 10, 11, and 12 (I hi-lighted species which I was most interested in, but my larger bird count numbers are often very rough "guesstimates")....
Pacific Loon, 1/0/0
Common Loon, 5/0/0
Western Grebe, 0/1/0
Black-footed Albatross, 10/10/10
Northern (Pacific) Fulmar, 0/1/0. Dark.
Pink-footed Shearwater, 500/500/500
Flesh-footed Shearwater, 0/0/0. Missed one by a few days. Formerly "Pale-footed Shearwater".
Buller's Shearwater, 0/2/1. Formerly "New Zealand or Grey-backed Shearwater". Unusually few this summer.
Sooty Shearwater, 1000/1000/1000.
Short-tailed Shearwater, 0/0/0. Formerly "Slender-billed Shearwater".
Manx Shearwater, 0/1/0.
Black-vented Shearwater, 1000/1000/2000 which usually stay in southern Calif waters. Formerly included with Manx Shearwater for many years.
Black Storm Petrel, 0/0/10.
Brown Pelican, 50/50/50.
Brandt's Cormorant, 300/300/300.
Double-crested Cormorant, a few.
Pelagic Cormorant, 10/10/20. Inshore only... not "pelagic" at all.
Surf Scoter, 0/1/0.
Black Oystercatcher, 5/5/0 along harbor seawall.
Black Turnstone, 2/0/2 along harbor seawall.
Surfbird, 5/5/5 along harbor seawall.
Red-necked Phalarope, 100/100/100.
South Polar Skua, 0/0/1. Formerly part of simply "Skua (Megalestris skua)".
Pomarine Jaeger, 10/10/10. Including one gorgeous dark morph with long central tail feathers.
Parasitic Jaeger, 10/10/10.
Long-tailed Jaeger, 2/2/0.
Heerman's Gull, 200/200/200.
California Gull, 50/50/50.
Western Gull, 200/200/200.
Sabine's Gull, 5/8/20 all well offshore (none anywhere near the coast, as we had at Cape Cod on Sept 7th). Mostly flying around, 20-50 feet up. Some swimming in water for ten minutes at a time. Some SAGU were following the boat and the cloud of gulls which followed it.
Elegant Tern, 20/20/20 mostly not too far offshore.
Common Tern, 0/5/0.
Arctic Tern, 5/5/5.
Common Murre, 300/400/500.
Pigeon Guillemot, 0/0/1 nearshore area north side of Monterey Bay.
Cassin's Auklet, 5/5/5.
Rhinoceros Auklet, 5/5/5.
Sea Otter
California Sea Lion
Northern Fur Seal
Humpback Whale
Killer Whale, 10/0/0.
Common Dolphin
Risso's Dolphin
Ocean Sunfish
Blue Shark
NAMES OF SEABIRDS (some history):
I included some "former names" of the species above to remind older birders of the names used during the 1950s-1970s. The most extreme case of AOU "name-changing" which I can think of is today's Band-rumped Storm-petrel which used to be called (working backwards)..... Harcourt's Petrel, Madeira Petrel, Hawaiian Petrel, part of Guadalupe Petrel before that, and part of Ashy Petrel before that!! And currently the DNA, vocalization & breeding studies suggest that today's Band-rumped Storm-petrel may need to be split into four different species!
Here is the Procellariiformes (tubenoses) page from the 53-year OLD 2nd edition 1961 Peterson (West), which most West Coast birders used during the 1960s and into the 1970s. Note all the changes against today's names:
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And the 1969 "revised and enlarged" 2nd edition of the "Western Peterson" had exactly the same plate and facing page for western "shearwaters, fulmar and storm petrels". None of those old names had changed yet, as of this 1969 Peterson.
Twenty years passed and by the 1990 Third Edition of Peterson West, however, note the several interesting changes....
Each day of our three pelagic trips was different and unique, even though they were three days in a row, September 10, 11 and 12. Some highlights included killer whales on day 1, a feeding frenzy of whales, dolphins and sea lions on day 2, south polar skua, black storm-petrels and pigeon guillemot on day 3, plus lots more.
PHOTO EQUIPMENT:
Every photo shown at this post was taken with my Panasonic Lumix FZ200 super zoom camera, with its 25-600mm equivalent focal length optical zoom range, with constant f/2.8 max aperture (across all focal lengths), with autofocus, and setting its burst rate at 5.5frames/sec with CAF (continuous auto focus). It has a small sensor so you will not get image quality quite as high as with full-frame, APS-C, 1-inch or other larger sensors. I am nevertheless very satisfied with this camera, although it does not do CAF at super long focal lengths quite as rapidly and confidently as a Canon 7D or 70D (although all 3 of those cameras sometimes struggle to acquire and hold CAF focus on a distant BIF [bird-in-flight] at 400mm and longer), so I have to work around occasional delays in locking onto a target BIF (squeeze the shutter release button and use the two-eyes-superimposed method to keep the unfocused bird in the frame until the CAF eventually locks on and then the camera automatically releases the shutter by itself!). When the Lumix does lock focus on to a very distant flying bird, even at 600mm and beyond (such as the third Sabine's Gull photo below, of a very distant bird), however, it does not let go of that focus, which is good, perhaps slightly better than the Canons in this one respect.
Of course the picture quality of a big 500mm f/4 Canon lens will be superior, as you can see from pictures Kerry Taylor (a very experienced bird photographer) took on 3 of the same trips with me that week...
PhotosByKerryTaylor << click on this link to see Kerry's beautiful bird photos.
THE GOOD SHIP "CHECK MATE"
with its outstanding captain/owner (and keen bird observer) "Tinker"...
One of the best part of these outstanding trips is the first ten minutes when Debi Shearwater belts out a unique, informative and sometimes humorous performance (but get to know her and you will love her) that is unforgettable! (-: Her confidence and seabird identification skills are unsurpassed after doing these pelagic trips non-stop for more than 39 years....
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| Debi tells it the way it is! |
ROUTES (click on each map image to enlarge):
Mostly around two very deep intersecting canyons and ridges: Monterey Canyon and Carmel Canyon...
September 10, 2014: with ten birders on board...
September 11, 2014: with twenty birders on board...
September 12, 2014: with forty birders on board, including a dozen from UK...
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MONTEREY BAY SEA LIFE!!
The activity and intensity of the sea life in and around Monterey Bay is amazing. The following are two typical scenes (you can click on the images to enlarge them)...
SABINE'S GULLS:
Here are five photos I took on three different days...
I wish this individual came in closer and I did not have to crop this shot so severely (the poor quality of this image is because of extreme distance, and extreme cropping, not because of poor focus)....
Sabine's Gull is intensely "pelagic" and like all seabirds it often sits on the ocean for hours...
BULLER'S SHEARWATER:
One of my favorite old seabirds from back-in-the-day (because of its striking pattern and unambiguous easy ID!), which we used to know as New Zealand or Grey-backed Shearwater, before its name change.
Buller's shearwater - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This highly patterned shearwater breeds only on a series of islands off New Zealand, and has never (except a very few times) been seen in the Atlantic Ocean.
Buller's and other "western" shearwaters (of course Manx is a mostly Atlantic shearwater) from the excellent 2008 National Geographic "Field Guide to the Birds of Western North America" (one of the several excellent modern field guides to western US birds)...
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Here are seven photos I took of two Buller's Shearwaters, taken under cloudy conditions, so the brightness of the bird's brilliant white underparts does not appear as striking as usual....
The Buller's is the lighter shearwater on the left. The much larger Pink-footed Shearwaters are in back, showing a light (yellowish) bill (unlike the similar but smaller and dark-billed Black-vented Shearwater, which is not in this photograph) and dark shades smudged around the cheek and neck (unlike the Buller's clean white in those areas)...
Buller's taking off, shown with Black-footed Albtross and Pink-footed Shearwater at the top...
BLACK STORM-PETREL: this is the closest this species got to us, unfortunately (it was so distant that it was barely visible as just a black dot with the naked eye)...
ENJOYING THE TRIP:
Trip leader Tim, my daughter Vicki (I was so happy that she was able to get away from work and join me for one of these exciting trips), and Debi Shearwater chatting during one of the few quiet times..
Leaders Tim Miller and Tom Johnson...
During the three trips Debi's leaders included herself, captain Tinker, Tom Johnson, Tim Miller, Jennifer Green, Garrison, and Dena Spatz.
Here is Yours Truly, in seabird heaven for three days (each trip at least eight hours of action)....
BLACK-FOOTED ALBATROSS:
BLACK-VENTED SHEARWATER:
Note all dark bill and blackish vent area (under tail coverts)...
Sooty and Black-vented Shearwaters...
Note Sooty's narrow wings, with whitish wing linings...
PINK-FOOTED SHEARWATER:
Wing beats much slower than the smaller Black-vented Shearwater (the two common West Coast shearwaters with mostly white underparts).
Note mostly pale bill, and pale feet...
and that both these shearwater species have a "smudgie" dark look around their head and throat, unlike the clean black/white look around the head and throat of Buller's and Manx Shearwaters....
AUKS:
photos coming soon
ELEGANT TERN:
Look at that bill!
POMARINE JAEGER:
one was a gorgeous dark morph with long central (and partially twisted) tail feathers. Notice that the white lines on the upper wing surfaces are all separate along the primary feathers. Those white lines do not come together to form large white areas, as often happens with skuas....
Look at those long SLENDER wings... nobody is going to mistake that for a S.P.Skua or Gr.Skua...
For comparison purposes, here is a South Polar Skua (off Hatteras 2015-may-21). Compare the white wing flashes with the Pomarine Jaeger, which lacks the skua's coalescing of the multiple white lines into a large solid "white flash"...
KILLER WHALE:
This giant individual and a nearby pod of eight other Orca terrorized a group of 2,000 dolphins as we watched...
MONTEREY AQUARIUM:
Lest I forget, while you are in the Monterey area, you should find half a day to visit the amazing aquarium ($40@), including live feeding frenzies and spectacular giant exhibits such as this one...
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More trip info and photos coming next week.
2018: Storm-petrel bad dreams:
ID: Leach's Storm-Petrel Split: Ainley's, Leach's, and Townsend's - Greg in San Diego
