August 22, 2006
Dream boat
Not long after returning to Davis, I jumped into Marcel's snazzy new Audi and we headed toward Mendocino and a Shearwater Journeys Fort Bragg pelagic. On the way up we stopped at the Mendocino headlands in search of the reported Horned Puffin - no sign of that, but plenty of Common Murres and a few Pigeon Guillemots thrown in for good measure.
There was a good selection of rocky shorebirds here: a pair of Black Oystercatchers, several Black Turnstones, a beach-feeding Red-necked Phalarope and this Wandering Tattler.
This rock had a decent colony of Brandt's Cormorants, Common Murres and Western Gulls - look closely and you'll see a baby Common Murre in their midst...
On the way back to our lodgings in Ukiah, we dipped Gray Jay yet again in Van Damme State Park, but I was happy enough to get reacquainted with Steller's Jays, Coast Redwoods and other specialities we don't get in France.
I had a good feeling about this pelagic before we even left the harbour - it seemed I knew about half of the people on the boat, so I was going to have fun catching up with old friends even if we didn't see any birds. I commented to Debi that I was hoping for a booby species in the light of recent west coast sightings, but she had much higher hopes for this trip! A beautiful summer-plumaged Pacific Loon from the dockside, and a fly-by Marbled Murrelet just offshore got things off to a good start. Not long after we ran into a stream of Sooty Shearwaters, with smaller numbers of Pink-footed Shearwaters amongst them.
A small flock of Buller's Shearwaters sitting on the water provided a rare opportunity to study these attractive birds close-up.
Calling Red Phalaropes, a few Northern Fulmars of both colour morphs, and the first of many Black-footed Albatrosses appeared.
Then all hell broke loose. I was standing next to my birding buddy Lisa Hug when she started stammering 'It's a... it's a... it's a...' and before she could finish Ryan Terrill yelled 'DARK-RUMPED PETREL!!!' I was able to quickly get on this bird and admired its crisp black and white plumage and distinctive flight style. Our talented captain was able to keep up with it for 17 minutes, allowing everyone on the boat crippling views of this stunning mega-rarity. My digibinning skills were not honed enough to manage a shot of it, but I was happy to drink in the views of this bird, only my second Pterodroma. The petrel watchers in action:
Everyone experienced post-petrel euphoria, but finder Lisa had the biggest grin of all!
Debi leads the applause for the sterling job of our captain in keeping up with the petrel.
We decided to put out some cod-liver oil and wait and see if the petrel returned. It didn't, but I was more than happy spending time with the flock of Black-footed Albatross which had gathered off the back of the boat. That's my finger in the foreground, to give you an idea of just how close these birds were.
The birds were squabbling over popcorn much like Mallards at a duckpond!
Gulp!
At one point I counted 17 of the beasts sitting together on the water.
Albatross digibinned.
Unlike many previous pelagics I'd been on, the bird activity stayed high for the rest of the day, with highlights including a Tufted Puffin that circled the boat, great views of all three Jaegers (including a Pom with spoons and a fully-tailed Long-tailed), South Polar Skua, delightful views of Sabine's Gulls in the wake, and small numbers of Ashy Storm-Petrel, Rhino and Cassin's Auklets. A highlight for me was two Xantus' Murrelets spotted by Marcel, which proceeded to sit just off the front of the boat, and were even heard whistling to each other. Two more events drew applause that day: a young Long-tailed Jaeger chasing a Brown-headed Cowbird overhead ('get 'im!') and a Laysan Albatross which took off and arced gracefully just in front of the boat.
The pelagic was well-attended by the group known as the 'young birders', who seem to be finding all the good birds in CA these days. I had my first lesson in chumming from Oscar Johnson (who just found the first CA Piping Plover since 1980) - apparently the trick is to throw just one tidbit at a time, enough to keep the birds interested, but not so much that they fall behind scoffing themselves on the leftovers.
To round off an exceptional day's seabirding, most of the boat party headed a few miles north, where we successfully twitched a Bar-tailed Godwit on Virgin Creek beach - a new US bird for me.
Not often that you see these two species in the same shot!
We were also able to get incredibly close to an obliging Baird's Sandpiper (I only just missed Ryan Terrill's head out of these shots!)...
... and some skulking Snowy Plovers.
Some moulting Harlequins on the rocks, and a Common Poorwill flushed on the drive back through the Coast Range, finished up an excellent day. I can't believe how lucky I was that my 2 weeks here coincided with this amazingly birdy (and birder-filled) trip. Some photos of the many species we saw today that I didn't get pics of can be seen on the Shearwater Journeys website.
Posted by rjhall at August 22, 2006 11:09 PM