copyright 2003 Shearwater Journeys

Shearwater Journeys just completed a set of three wonderful pelagic trips off the central coast of California: Sep 13 from Bodega Bay to the Cordell Bank & Bodega Canyon, Sep 14 from Santa Cruz on the north side of Monterey Bay, and Sep 15 from Monterey to the albacore fishing areas nearly 50 miles offshore. The Sep 13 and 15 trips were 12 hours long, while the Sep 14 trip was 8 hours in duration. Each trip presented the particpants with different seabirding opportunities. Many partipants who travelled from out-of-state particpated in all three trips; Shearwater Journey's trips are designed specifically with this in mind. Those seabirders who did all three trips saw approximately 40 species of seabirds in total; ten species of tubenoses and eight species of alcids were recorded! No less spectacular, eleven species of whales and dolpins were recorded!

Albacore Grounds

Clearly, the highlight of the set of trips was the first record this fall of two CRAVERIS' MURRELETS spotted by beginner, Don Doolittle. Two XANTUS' MURRELETS were spotted by Richard Ellenberg and Debra Shearwater. Both pairs (?) of murrelets were sitting on the water and allowed all particpants to have "cracking" views and photo ops. The murrelets were found on the albacore trip on Sep 15th. They are one of the specialties of this particular trip. Glassy-smooth seas made for the excellent viewing conditions. Sunshine and our wonderful boat, the New Holiday, made our day a very pleasant one. Skipper Nick Lemon carefully manuevered the boat around the murrelets. Other highlights of this day included: 42 LONG-TAILED JAEGERS, 380 ASHY STORM-PETRELS, 2 BLACK STORM-PETRELS, 109 SABINE'S GULLS, and16 ARCTIC TERNS.

Cordell Bank

Highlights of the Sep 13 trip from Bodega Bay (Debra Shearwater's birthday trip!) included: 120 BLACK-FOOTED ALBATROSSES, 220 PINK-FOOTED, 10 BULLER'S and 1 FLESH-FOOTED SHEARWATER, 2 NORTHERN FULMARS, 1,500 ASHY, 2-3 WILSON'S, 1 FORK-TAILED STORM-PETRELS, 4 SOUTH POLAR SKUAS, 300 SABINE'S GULLS, 21 ARCTIC TERNS, and 1 TUFTED PUFFIN. The weather conditions were excellent with calm seas.

Santa Cruz

The trip on Sep 14th from Santa Cruz greeted us with dense morning fog, and windy conditions. The fog prevented us from finding the usual MARBLED MURRELETS along the shoreline. We have a 90% success rate finding these murrelets. So, this was very disappointing. The highlight of the day was watching 5 ORCAS feeding on a CALIFORNIA SEA LION that they had previously killed. At one point, with our boat in idle, the male orca and a female-type surfaced from just under our stern!! The folks at the stern of our vessel saw the orca with a huge hunk of sea lion meat in its mouth! It was quite spectacular‹a rare sight, indeed.

TOTALS

The total tubenose list for the 3 days was: BLACK-FOOTED ALBATROSS; SOOTY, PINK-FOOTED, BULLER'S and FLESH-FOOTED SHEARWATERS, NORTHERN FULMAR; ASHY, BLACK, WILSON'S, and FORK-TAILED STORM-PETRELS. The total list of alcids for all 3 days was: COMMON MURRE, PIGEON GUILLEMOT; RHINOCEROS and CASSIN'S AUKLETS; TUFTED PUFFIN; XANTUS' and CRAVERIS' MURRELETS. The other usual fall seabirds were recorded.

The total marine mammal list for the 3 days was: BLUE, HUMPBACK, MINKE, SPERM, and BAIRD'S BEAKED WHALES; HARBOR and DALL'S PORPOISES; ORCA; PACIFIC WHITE-SIDED, NORTHERN RIGHT WHALE, and RISSO'S DOLPHINS; NORTHERN FUR SEAL, NORTHERN ELEPHANT SEAL, HARBOR SEAL, CALIFORNIA SEA LION, and SEA OTTER.

Clearly, it is worth one's while to go on the entire set of trips, if at all possible. The next weekend with 3 trips available is Oct 12, 13, and 14. We also have spaces available on Sep 27, 28; Oct 4, 6, and 19. Our entirely pelagic Christmas Bird Count will be held on Monday, December 16. Call Debra Shearwater at 831/637-8527 for reservations, or send me an email.

Click on the Murrelet to find out how to reserve a trip.