SEARCHER - Labor Day Week 2010 - Pelagic Seabirding Cruise
681 views · Published 15 September 2010 · 5:26 · Indexed 4 October 2026
Channel: W. Terry Hunefeld · 2010 · People & Blogs
By: Terry Hunefeld (San Diego) http://www.socalbirding.com/2010tripreports/searcher610sep2011.html Searcher's Labor Day week expedition through the Channel Islands and deep waters beyond the Continental Shelf began with a Black Storm-Petrel in San Diego Harbor, 2 Black Oystercatchers at Ballast Point, 15 Least and a Wilson's Storm-Petrel at the Nine Mile Bank, a Flesh-footed Shearwater at the Bell Bank 130+ n. miles offshore, 27 Buller's Shearwaters, 113 Long-tailed Jaegers, 5 South Polar Skua, a Cook's Petrel (or two), 4 Red-billed Tropicbirds between the Bell Bank and the Dumping Grounds, 49 Ashy and 350 (3 subspecies) of Leach's Storm-Petrels and 14 Black-footed Albatrosses Marine Mammals and fish highlights: 30+ Guadalupe Fur Seals and 78 Whales including Baird's Beaked, Bryde's, Minke, Fin, Blue, Humpbacks. Also: 25 Risso's, 20 Elephant Seals, Basking & Blue Sharks, Mola, Swordfish, Albacore, thousands of Saury, hundreds of Green Darners, a small army of Common Dolphin and 75 Pacific White-sided. Special thanks to leaders (1) Todd McGrath, who threaded us through the canyons, seamounts and ridges of the California bight while finding and identifying birds at astounding distances; (2) Mike Fritz from east coast birding fame (6-time team winner of the World Series of Birding) who never sat down, and (3) Dave Povey who spent 5 days attracting all manner of seabirds to SEARCHER with his concoctions of popcorn, fish-oil, fish-guts and beef-fat. Thank-you, too, to Art Taylor and Celia Condit, SEARCHER'S owners, who took a chance on "those crazy seabird lovers" in 2003 and block time every year from their natural history tours for a birding expedition enabling us to wander and ramble the California bight in search of seabirds (with frequent and joyous stops to witness the awesome spectacles of marine mammals).
