November 30, 2017

I was awake when my alarm started buzzing on Thursday morning. It was still dark out and the motion of the boat was quite apparent. We prepped for the day, grabbed breakfast, then emerged on the starboard side of the boat facing the sea. It was cold, mainly due to the speed at which the ship was moving. I had been told previously that the bow of the ship is the best place to be so you can see birds on both sides of the ship and have a good vantage point for birds passing in front. However this morning, the bow was closed to traffic, so we stuck to the sides.


It was still rather dim out and making out birds was difficult in the early light. A few gulls passed near and far, and NORTHERN FULMAR and a handful of SOOTY SHEARWATERS appeared as things began to lighten a little. But things were definitely moving quite slow the first couple of hours.


At one point as we watched a fulmar passing, I noticed a shearwater behind it and to the right. As I focused my binoculars, I could make out an obvious pink bill. I immediately took my camera and started taking pictures. I believed it was a FLESH-FOOTED SHEARWATER, but the pictures weren't great. Several others looked at the pictures and concurred that is what it looked like, but it was pretty far out.


There was a lot of downtime punctuated by the occasional burst of excitement. A distant BULLER'S SHEARWATER made a pass, a lifer for me. A single PINK-FOOTED SHEARWATER came by some time later. Besides the 3 single species, we tallied around 12 SOOTY SHEARWATERS. Myself and several other saw several completely dark storm-petrels in the distance at one point--but species ID was impossible. The general assumption this time of year and locations would be ASHY STORM-PETREL, given the lack of white on the rump.


RED PHALAROPE came and went usually as singles, but there were a couple small flocks. CASSIN'S AUKLET awkwardly scurried away on the surface of the water when the boat would approach. The occasional POMARINE JAEGER made a pass, usually pretty far off in the distance. Things moved slowly. About an hour before noon I headed to the port side to get a different view and pick a spot to lock down for the afternoon. The bow had opened and a number of birders headed there. I wanted to get away from the crowds for a bit so stuck to the side.


Several birders followed and a small contingent of us set up shop. It wasn't long before I yelled out SABINE'S GULL as a bird floated along in the distance. This would be the only one of the trip. Shortly after that, we picked up a Jaeger and after a few seconds, I mentioned it looked more like a PARASITIC JAEGER. It was sleek and flying fast, and lacked the barrel-chest appearance of the poms. Another only of the trip. We also snagged our first BLACK-FOOTED ALBATROSS of the day with a distant flyby.

Eventually, I took a lunch break and after hurriedly scarfing down a hamburger on the lido deck, returned to the post on the side of the ship. Out of nowhere the entire contingent of birders appeared and filled in the entire front section of the side. They had been booted from the bow due to rough water conditions.



The 5 hour afternoon vigil was even slower than the morning watch. Only 11 species graced us, but one was a lifer for me with a LAYSAN ALBATROSS. We actually had 2 as well as 3 more BLACK-FOOTED ALBATROSS, but none came anywhere near the boat. And all were in the last 90 minutes as we made our way further north in California waters.



Aside from the albatrosses 14 CASSIN'S AUKLET were one of the most numerous species of the afternoon--following the 6-7 NORTHERN FULMAR that popped up every hour.


There was a brief moment of excitement when someone yelled out that there was a Cook's Petrel. This was about the same time that an interesting Northern Fulmar and a Buller's Shearwater made a pass and left several of us scratching our heads. I got shitty pictures of the Buller's and a few of the fulmar but missed the petrel--which would have been a lifer. Later in the evening, I heard that this species was taken back upon further reflection, so I felt much better about things.


The sun finally started to fade to the west, so I decided to wrap things up and head to the room to get some pictures. My companions remained on deck till the last rays of light disappeared hoping for one of our targets to emerge--alas they did not. But the sunset was a beauty.


As we spent the rest of the relaxing, eating dinner, and talking with other birders on board the consensus was that it was a disappointing day. I was actually thinking things went pretty well. I snagged 2 lifers and had 2 other possible lifers that I just didn't get good looks at so I left them off my list. I had expected distant and terrible looks at far and few between birds. Others felt the numbers were light and the overall diversity low--but being my first repo pelagic, I was pretty happy with the outcome, minus the lack of target species.

Here are two views that I had much of the day.  Distant views of open ocean where birds were mere specks on the horizon, and water-filled views as I looked down from 30-50' above the water on the ship.



Being dark by 5 meant we had 5 hours to kill, and being a cruise there is lots to do. That being said, I was wiped and just wanted to relax. We retired to our room and watched Thursday Night Football, but for those inclined to do other things, there was an outdoor theatre and an indoor theatre with movies playing basically all day and evening long. A casino, a sports bar, a coffee shop, numerous lounges, sit-down restaurants (with cover charge), and various other entertainment opportunities can provide things to do if that's your cup of tea.

Being honest during my time on the ship, I never went lower than the 6th deck, and never ventured back past the main lobby to the read half of the boat. I stuck mostly to the room, the Lido deck (14th floor) where the restaurant bars and pools were located, the bow and side decks for birding, and an occasional trip to the lobby where the bar and a cafe were located. Leaving your position was a risky bet--if a bird flew by it would be gone within minutes at the most. If you were inside, you missed out, if you were on the wrong side, you missed out. And so on and so forth.

If you do a repo pelagic, you should plan on spending the majority of daylight hours glued to the group and scanning the water--and Friday would prove the importance of that...

Photos from Today
November 30th - California Seabirds

Checklists from Today
REPO Cruise -- Central California Waters South of SFO (36.67875,-122.68943)
REPO Cruise -- Central California Waters North of SFO (37.74964,-123.48051)


Other Posts in this Series
West Coast Pelagic Repo Cruise Part 1: Adios Los Angeles
>> West Coast Pelagic Repo Cruise Part 2: California Slog
West Coast Pelagic Repo Cruise Part 3: Pterodromas to the Rescue
West Coast Pelagic Repo Cruise Part 4: Vancouver, BC or Bust

Labels: albatross, California, pelagic, petrel, repo cruise, seabirds, travel

November 29, 2017

I woke up and was congested. What a brilliant start this would be to 3 nights on cruise ship followed by a couple days in Canada. I slugged some Day Quil, grabbed my gear and was off to the airport. I took an early flight so I could spend 1/2 the day birding around Orange County, and met my buddy Dorian Anderson at baggage claim once on the ground. We kept the plans fluid and had hoped to chase a Nazca Booby that had been about 40 minutes south two days earlier--but with the bird being a no-show the previous day we stuck closer to the airport. After an hour at Huntington Park East, Chris Monahan met us and we birded Bolsa Chica and Mile Square Park before dropping off the rental and UBERing to the cruise port.


Huntington Park had it's usual suspects, with a decent sized flock of SCALY-BREASTED MUNIA eliciting a few clicks of the shutter from me. A wayward WHITE-FACED IBIS also posed for some nice shots along the edge of the currently flooded pond basin.


Overlooking Bolsa Chica from Harriett M. Wieder Regional Park I snagged a pair of FOX SPARROW, a new California bird for me. From the 101 we walked across the boardwalk into the main impoundments at Bolsa Chica. Birding was phenomenal as usual. We picked up 55 species in under 45 minutes, including a wayward REDDISH EGRET, several RUDDY TURNSTONE, a MERLIN, and a couple HORNED GREBES.


We decided we could fit some time in at Mile Square Park and headed that way. The ponds were rather dead, so we hit the botanical garden/"wild" area in the middle of the park. A couple VERMILION FLYCATCHER were here as well as a lost GRAY FLYCATCHER and on the golf course, a SNOW GOOSE joined a flock of Canada Geese. With a few new state birds in tow, we grabbed lunch nearby at Sabrosada (great Carne Asada Fries), then headed to the port.


Being my first cruise everything I had been told was conjecture. I didn't know what to expect and to be honest, the boarding process wasn't as bad as I imagined. We were on the ship in under an hour and found our room. It was small as expected, but we splurged the extra $40/person for the balcony, so we had some fresh air.


Before we could depart there was the mandatory, emergency drill. This initiated with a blast of the alarm, followed by us descending 5 flights of stairs to our muster point with 800 other guests. One misconception I had was that this would be a lightly packed cruise--it was not. As far as I could tell the cruise sold out and the thing was packed to the gills with passengers. According to the Princess Website, our vessel, the Star Princess could hold 3,100 guests and 1,205 crew.

After listening to the captain drone on about safety procedure with way more tangents than were needed, we bailed on the interior of the ship and joined a rather large contingent of birders on the bow to see our way out of the harbor. I recognized a few familiar faces including Michael Lester who currently resides in Utah, past client Keith Camburn, and birding great Paul Lehman who I hadn't seen in over a decade.  I also had the pleasure of meeting a birding legend in Guy McCaskie.


We had gotten a late start so by the time we reached the breakwater it was for all intents and purposes too dark to bird. We managed PEREGRINE FALCON and BLACK-CROWNED NIGHT-HERON on the way out, then quickly disappeared to our cabin.


One thing to remember about a November repo cruise on the best coast (that's right--the best) is that daylight is at a premium. Sunrise was sometime between 7:30 and 8:00 am, and sunset between 4:45 and 5:00 pm. This meant that there was a lot of downtime in the evenings. On our first night on ship this gave us an opportunity to look at field guides and study up on what we would be looking for the next day.


For most birders on the ship there were 2 very distinct targets. The first and most expected was Mottled Petrel. This should be a give me on this cruise this time of year, but being on the open ocean there are no guarantees. The second bird for many was a "hopeful", and for most probably a second thought due to how rarely encountered it is. That bird is the Short-tailed Albatross. A species that half a century ago was brought to the brink of extinction when all the breeding pairs were killed off. If it wasn't for juveniles at sea, the species would have been wiped from the face of the planet. When these young birds reached sexual maturity, they returned to one breeding location on Torishima. And with conservation efforts, it is estimated that there are perhaps 2,500 on the planet now.

The main difficulty in seeing these birds is they are rare in North American Waters--which makes sense given their occurrence range of 13,400,000 sq miles.over the entire Pacific Ocean. Being only the 2nd west coast pelagic I had been on I had a handful of more likely species like Fork-tailed Storm-Petrel, Buller's Shearwater, and Laysan Albatross I hoped to pick up. I also studied up on Cook's Petrel, the auklets, and various other seabirds with hopes I wouldn't miss anything I caught in my scope or binoculars.

After dinner and relaxing in the room it was time to turn in for the night. As it would turn out this was the lousiest night of sleep I ever had. I couldn't get comfortable on the tiny bed, and the motion of the boat made things worse. I slept some here and there, but when my alarm went off the next morning, I was anything but perky for my first day of pelagic repo cruise birding...

Photos from Today
November 29th - Los Angeles


Checklists from Today
Huntington Central Park -- East
Harriett M. Wieder Regional Park
Bolsa Chica -- Walk Bridge
Mile Square Regional Park


Other Posts in this Series
>> West Coast Pelagic Repo Cruise Part 1: Adios Los Angeles
West Coast Pelagic Repo Cruise Part 2: California Slog
West Coast Pelagic Repo Cruise Part 3: Pterodromas to the Rescue
West Coast Pelagic Repo Cruise Part 4: Vancouver, BC or Bust

Labels: albatross, California, pelagic, petrel, repo cruise, seabirds, travel