Half Moon Bay, 8/17 and 8/23

Sooty Shearwater. Angular.

Some coverage today from the August 17 and August 23 pelagic trips with Shearwater Journeys out of Half Moon Bay, CA. My next boat will be on September 7, with This Machine Nate, Laurence of Arizona, and Flycatcher Jen. I have never been on a boat with so many bird bloggers...the tremendous weight of our combined nerd-strength could sink us before we get out of the harbor. Hopefully they will get some lifers...I believe this will be Laurence's first pelagic, so I expect he will be flipping out and spewing puns for the duration. As for me, September 7 is still within the Hawaiian Petrel window, so that is my target bird...don't worry, I'll be looking for White-chinned and Great-winged too, but I am a humble birder. Warm water conditions persist in much of the eastern Pacific, and there are a lot of Sulids in the area right now, so you never know what we might find.

As I compose this post, I am impressively ill. I mean, no one is going to be doing any ice bucket bullshit for me, but existence is rather unpleasant at the moment. So for today I will cut the loquacious crap, and each photo is going to get exactly one word to accompany the species.

Rhinoceros Auklets. Gloomy.

Tufted Puffin. Inspecting.

South Polar Skua. Skippy.

Broad.

Black-footed Albatross. Hello.

Majestic.

Brakes.

Common Tern. Wedged.

Articesque.

California Gull. Cinnamon.

Edgings.

Pink-footed Shearwater, with Western Gulls. Disparate.

Harried.

Pomarine Jaeger. Pomatorhine.

Dauntless.

Pacific Loon. Fresh.

Steller's and California Sea Lions. Blondes.

Steller's Sea Lion. Sneers.

Another Half Moon Bay Pelagic

Nothing cuts a profile like a Black-footed Albatross. Albatross are good luck to the ancient mariner and dedicated seabirder alike.

In early October I got a surprise invitation to go on a Shearwater Journeys boat out of Half Moon Bay, CA, which I gladly accepted. This was my third and final boat trip of the year (a November trip got cancelled due to weather) that started out slow, but got a lot more interesting as we approached the Farrallon Islands. No gannet detour was made (bummer), but it was a good day even without the celebrity sulid. No real rarities, but lifer Leatherback Sea Turtle, hundreds of Buller's Shearwaters and hearing a Marbled Murrelet call for the first time in years were definite highlights. If I am free next fall (which is usually the case), I hope to make it on a lot more bird boats.

Here's the first batch of photos, more to come.

Double-crested Cormorants, Brown Pelican, Brandt's Cormorant. These are some of the most noticeable harbor-loving birds on the California coast. Note the lefthand cormorant, which is sporting a white gular fringe in the style of a Neotropic Cormorant.

Brandt's Cormorant. Their eyes stand out like sore thumbs...beautiful, emerald blue sore thumbs.

Marbled Murrelets are dependable on boat trips out of Half Moon Bay. There are usually a couple pairs on the water just south of the harbor, and on this day I watched a (calling!) bird fly into Pillar Point Harbor as well.

Like storm-petrels, Marbled Murrelets aren't big fans of big boats, and being Endangered, we don't get too close to them on the water.

A Black-footed albatross buzzes a little shearwater flock. Rafting behind it are Pink-footed and Buller's Shearwaters, and a Heerman's Gull doing its best Flesh-footed Shearwater impression. Considering their penchant for impersonating jaegers, Heerman's Gulls are really versatile birds.

After the albatross cruised by, a small parade of Pacific White-sided Dolphins made a pass by the shearwaters.

Pacific White-sided Dolphins are easy to identify, with their strongly curved dorsal fins and lack of the typical dolphin snout. They look more like porpoises.

Pacific white-sided Dolphins are one of the more animated cetaceans found in California waters. Like most dolphins, they really like being dolphins.

Buller's Shearwater (year bird). I finally managed to get some shots with their signature back pattern. On my previous pelagic trip out of Monterey Bay, we saw about 4. On this day, we saw hundreds! Whole flocks of them! That will dilate the pupils any day.

It's been a warm water year off of California, with big numbers of Black-vented Shearwaters making it all the way up to northern California for much of the fall. This isn't a bird to expect this far north most years. 

Pacific Loons are not hard to see from shore, but its pretty rare to get very close to them. Boats off California encounter many in late fall and winter. Note the good posture on this bird, Red-throated Loons slouch their necks. Lazy bastards.

A Tufted Puffin (year bird) in its infrequently-seen basic plumage. This one still sports a big orange bill, but has dropped its tufts and white facial patch. From a distance, it reminded me of a male Surf Scoter.

A Weird Time Of Year

Golden-crowned Sparrows are often found in blooming willows and fruit trees this time of year, bucolically devouring flower petals. Golden Gate Park, San Francisco.

Late February. It's a weird time of year. Some people hate February. Winter has been around for a while now, and people in colder climates are starting to get sick of it. The sharp and jagged pains from a million Valentine's Day disasters are felt from coast to coast. Birders have been staring at the same birds for months, and desperately look forward to spring migration. A kind of catatonic depression begins to sink in...long, loving relationships fracture and explode into flames...The Fear sets in, fingernails are chewed off...who are these bastards watching me from the shadows anyway?...and we ask ourselves how much more we can really take...

Well, I'm sure that's the case for some people anyways. Personally, February has always been a month of transition for me, as every year I typically cease my Perpetual Weekend and go back to being a field biologist. At this time last year I was taking up residence west of Veracruz, Mexico, standing on a roof all day looking for raptors and being force-fed caguamas at night (in this case caguamas are 40 oz beers, not tortoises)...but at this point, I've managed to completely fail at lining anything up. Life is pain, as they say, but my luck is bound to change.

Yup...February. Today's blog is a quick snapshot of birding around the bay area this time of year. And before I dive in too deep in to the philosophical bowels of the month, I must assist The Great Ornithologist Felonious Jive in finishing his next 10,000 Birds post, before it is too late. See you soon, bird geeks.

Next month most Western Grebes that intend on breeding this year will begin retreating from the coast to inland lakes. Once there, they will commence spectacular courtship dances and making grotesquely adorable babies. Lake Merritt, Oakland.

Clark's Grebes will do pretty much the same thing as Westerns...they used to be the same species, ya know. Lake Merritt, Oakland.

Hooded Mergansers will be departing in a few weeks. It is a great shame. Golden Gate Park, San Francisco.

Black Phoebes and other "resident" passerines often begin nesting earlier than the migrants. By the way, this is my best Black Phoebe shot to date...Californians may feel insulted to have to look at another phoebe, but maybe the rest of you will appreciate it. Golden Gate Park, San Francisco.

Varied Thrushes are uncommon winter visitors to much of the bay area. They won't be around much longer, as the urge to retreat to the redwoods grows stronger every day. Golden Gate Park, San Francisco.

Raptors, like Peregrine Falcons, often get started breeding during the winter months. This one won't be bumping cloacas quite yet though, it's too young. Point Reyes.

Seawatching birders will be detecting northbound migrants soon, if they haven't started already. Pacific Loons are one of the commonest spring migrants along the California coastline. Half Moon Bay.

A few miles offshore, Cassin's Auklets occupy California waters year round. Much like me, they are probably growing tired of just hanging around for the past several months and doing nothing but socializing and eating...it's time to breed! Well, I don't actually intend on doing that, but you know what I mean. Half Moon Bay.

February is a great time of year to look for weird gulls....herring runs can trigger thousands of gulls to accumulate along stretches of coast for days at a time. I thought this beefy beast was well-proportioned for a darker Herring X Glaucous Gull (aka Nelson's Gull), although it could be a Glaucous-winged X Herring. Fort Baker, Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

Wait. I Thought We Weren't Supposed To Go On Pelagic Trips.

Rhinoceros Auklet. Not a Whiskered Auklet, despite the whiskers. But that's ok, because I have seen hundreds of Whiskered Auklets. No big deal.

Last month I had the opportunity to go on another pelagic with Debi Shearwater, out of Half Moon Bay, California. A big storm was coming in out of the north so we did not get as far offshore as planned, but we still managed to find a lot of the pelagic birds that one could reasonably hope for this time of year.

I'll post some more shots later. Today I'm going out to Point Reyes again to stare at a Dickcissel, amongst other things. Picture me birding.

Bonaparte's Gulls are stylish.

Red Phalaropes were seen on and off throughout the trip. They are too well-camouflaged for the brain of my autofocus, and this is one of the very few usable shots I ended up with.

A Sooty Shearwater impersonates a Black-footed Albatross, in order to mock all the birders on the boat hoping to see a Black-footed Albatross that day (we saw none).

Not tack-sharp, but otherwise I'm pretty happy with this Short-tailed Shearwater shot. They're not easy birds to accurately identify, let alone photograph.

Another Sooty Shearwater for comparison.

We saw a few Marbled Murrelets, including this rather "confiding" bird.

Northern Fulmars were often just a few feet off the stern of the boat. All the better to study their grunginess. For any nonbirders reading this, that strange apparatus on its beak is part of the bird's salt filtration system...they can drink salt water all day, no problem.

Pacific Loon. Economy of style.

The rarely seen cruise-missile flight mode of the Pelagic Cormorant. The pelican exploded a second after this photograph was taken.