copyright 2004 Shearwater Journeys

Howdy, Seabirders,

Shearwater Journeys had a very successful and surprising trip on Monterey Bay on August 29, 2004. It was the much hoped for, typical fall weather with uniformly high overcast skies, no whitecaps, and excellent viewing conditions. It was foggy at my house in Hollister, 45 miles inland from Monterey when I left home in the morning for the commute to the dock. I had expected that some migrants might land on our boat. A TOWNSEND'S WARBLER was the first migrant to land. After flying round and round the boat, it nestled itself inside one of the life rafts on the top deck. Sometimes, it would fly around the boat, land on people, and then return to the life rafts. Ryan Terrill got a great photo of it perched on someone's Leica bins! Next a LEAST SANDPIPER began flying around the boat. Ryan saw the sandpiper land on the gunnels of the stern of the boat, and walk around for awhile. Even the sandpiper would land on people's heads! Quite comical! Clay Kempf, Don Doolittle, and I were sitting on the bow of the boat, watching the sandpiper fly around, when suddenly another shorebird appeared with it. We were not sure about this second bird. Later we determined it to be a Snowy Plover. We were 15.2 nautical miles west of Point Pinos.

Our day began with the usual Coast Guard Jetty cruise-by for BRANDT'S CORMORANTS, BROWN PELICANS, HEERMANN'S GULLS, BLACK TURNSTONES, etc. Along Cannery Row, we found the usual ELEGANT TERNS and PIGEON GUILLEMOTS. But, something was clearly amiss, we were surrounded by a red tide! It seemed that the entire inside of Monterey Bay was filled with a red tide. The thousands and thousands of Sooty Shearwaters that had been inside the bay had cleared out. Nearly all of the large whales had also cleared out. Gone were the Red-necked Phalaropes along the kelp beds. Upon assessing this situation, I immediately decided that we would spend a large chunk of our day offshore! This was a dramatic change since my last trip on Monterey Bay on August 13th. It will change, yet again. But, on this day, offshore was clearly the plan of the day.

As further evidence of the the choking of the food chain inside the bay, we encountered Elegant Terns and Brown Pelicans in large feeding flocks over schools of fish 6-8 miles offshore. Soon, we also encountered flocks of shearwaters, too. We were delighted to come across our first whales of the trip, 2 FIN WHALES! While Humpbacks and Blues are common at this time of year, Fins are not so easily found. Then, some storm-petrels began skipping into view. Finally, we were able to count thousands of storm-petrels, among them 4 species: ASHY, BLACK, LEAST, and WILSON'S STORM-PETRELS. Most folks were able to pick up on the Wilson's and the Leasts. Perhaps with the predictions of a pending El Nino, this will be a good year for Least Storm-Petrels. It is hard to tell at this stage of the season. One thing of note, is that we rarely have seen Leasts this early in the season, and certainly they do not make it to Monterey Bay every year. So, if you are looking for this hard-to-find species, now might be a good time to get on a boat.

The full trip list follows:

BLACK-FOOTED ALBATROSS-42
NORTHERN FULMAR-5
PINK-FOOTED SHEARWATER-355
SOOTY SHEARWATER-505
BULLER'S SHEARWATER-8
WILSON'S STORM-PETREL-4
ASHY STORM-PETREL-2500
BLACK STORM-PETREL-120
LEAST STORM-PETREL-30
BROWN PELICAN-32
BRANDT'S CORMORANT-+
PELAGIC CORMORANT-8
RED-BREASTED MERGANSER-1
SNOWY PLOVER-1
WHIMBREL-1
MARBLED GODWIT-15
BLACK TURNSTONE-3
LEAST SANDPIPER-1
RED-NECKED PHALAROPE-32
RED PHALAROPE-2
POMARINE JAEGER-8
PARASITIC JAEGER-3
LONG-TAILED JAEGER-2
HEERMANN'S GULL-85
CALIFORNIA GULL-37
WESTERN GULL-200
SABINE'S GULL-36
ELEGANT TERN-115
COMMON TERN-3
COMMON/ARCTIC TERN-10
ARCTIC TERN-1
COMMON MURRE-226
PIGEON GUILLEMOT-14 (2 JUVS)
XANTUS/CRAVERI'S MURRELET-1 fly-away
CASSIN'S AUKLET-40
RHINOCEROS AUKLET-170
TOWNSEND'S WARBLER-1
SEA OTTER-4
CALIFORNIA SEA LION-+
NORTHERN FUR SEAL-1
HARBOR SEAL-1
FIN WHALE-1
HUMPBACK WHALE-1
DALL'S PORPOISE-5
OCEAN SUNFISH-6
BLUE SHARK-1


The leaders on this trip were Clay Kempf, Ted Chandik, Scott Terrill, Linda Terrill, and Debi Shearwater. Our pro chummers were Matt Brady and David Vander Pluym. There were many happy seabirders at the end of the day.

Our next trip from Monterey is this Sunday, September 5th. We do have spaces available. For more information on this or other trips send Debra Shearwater an e-mail or call 831/637-8527. WHAT'S NEXT?
Shearwaters forever,
Debi
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A UK participant has a written account of his pelagic trip with Shearwater Journeys.

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