copyright 2003 Shearwater Journeys

Hello, Seabirders,

Wow! What a wonderful day we had on Monterey Bay. It was Shearwater Journey's first trip of the late summer/early fall season, and the seabirds exceeded our expectations, while the marine mammal show was extraordinary. Its hard to know where to begin. The morning began with the usual high overcast fog, cooling all of us down from the long hot days on shore recently. By afternoon, we had the perfect seabirding conditions (which will become evident from our species list): high, uniformly overcast skies and warmer air temps. The Beaufort conditions never exceeded 2. In other words, we had those serenely, glassy-smooth conditions required for viewing the much sought-after XANTUS' and CRAVERI'S MURRELETS!

We did the usual out-of-the-harbor routine, finding BLACK TURNSTONES, BROWN PELICANS, BRANDT'S CORMORANTS (3 nests with young in them), PELAGIC CORMORANTS, and an assortment of HERONS: GREAT BLUE, BLACK-CROWNED NIGHT HERON, and GREAT EGRET along the Coast Guard Breakwater. CALIFORNIA SEA LIONS lounged along the breakwater, while a SEA OTTER was munching on a purple sea urchin. PIGEON GUILLEMOTS were abundant in the harbor and along Cannery Row.

Heading straight for Point Pinos, we found a group of 18 RISSO'S DOLPHINS, and our first SOOTY SHEARWATERS, RED-NECKED PHALAROPES, and BLACK-FOOTED ALBATROSSES of the day. Steaming out to the edge of the great Monterey Submarine Canyon, we encountered the "commuter" whales! Such a show! Whales everywhere. Luckily, we watched up to 13 FIN WHALES surface feeding, and the seabirding exploded! Once we hit the 56F sea surface water temps, the murrelets seemed to come fast and furiously. Everyone on board had excellent, close-up views of Xantus' Murrelets. Due to the very calm ocean, we ended up with a total of 12 XANTUS' and 4 CRAVERI'S MURRELETS for the day. At one point, we were all so enthralled with the murrelets, that some of us missed the first BULLER'S SHEARWATER of the fall season which flew into the wake of our boat. SABINE'S GULLS were passing us in a steady stream throughout the day. A single BLACK STORM-PETREL flew past the stern.

Great amounts of krill were present along with small bait fish breaking the surface. Skipper, Tinker, pointed out some tuna on the fish finder. PINK-FOOTED SHEARWATERS flew around the boat, and a single RED KNOT zipped past us about 11 miles offshore. Soon, we saw a small, breaching HUMPBACK WHALE that put on quite a show! More Humpbacks were surface feeding on balls of krill quite near out boat. It was a spectacular scene. CASSIN'S AUKLETS were taking advantage of the krill balls as well, gorging to the point of not being able to take flight! It is unusual to find Cassin's at this time of year, especially in the numbers that we saw yesterday.

Our trip was rounded out with some flocks of father/chick pairs of COMMON MURRES, a couple of dozen RHINOCEROS AUKLETS, ELEGANT TERNS, WESTERN, CALIFORNIA, and HEERMANN'S GULLS, and DALL'S PORPOISE, bowriding.Two BLUE WHALES were spotted on the way home, but we were already almost an hour late returning from our fun day! Tinker, our skipper, did a fine job, and leaders Scott and Linda Terrill and Jennifer Green provided seabird and marine mammal expertise.

All in all, it was a superb day for seabirding and watching marine mammals! Our next Monterey trips with spaces available are: August 2, 8, 23, 31 and September 7, 14, 15, 26. Our next trips from Santa Cruz with spaces available are: September 13, 27; from Bodega Bay: August 9, September 12, 19, 28. ALL of the August Fort Bragg trips (Aug 15, 16, 17) are SOLD OUT. The September 21 and October 15 Fort Bragg t rips have spaces available. Please email me at the address below, or call for more information.

Good Seabirding,
Debra Shearwater

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