By Terry Hunefeld
Grande departed for the Continental Shelf edge on Saturday October 10, 2009 at 7:00 a.m. sharp from Point Loma via San Diego bay, past Ballast Point (and a Black Oystercatcher) into 63 degree waters of the Pacific Ocean. Five miles offshore we were watching Black-vented Shearwaters when the call, “Booby!” went out as an immature Brown Booby flew up to and through the gull flock fighting over our popcorn chum.
Within another mile we were “into” the storm-petrels and pink-foots. On top of the Nine Mile Bank we encountered the mother lode, a flock estimated by leaders at 8,000 to 12,000 storm-petrels, of which 15% were Least (that’s more than a thousand Least Storm-Petrels on the Nine Mile!) and 85% were Blacks. At the Nine Mile we also had good looks at a Humpback Whale, a Northern Fulmar, a Sabine’s Gull, a Western Meadowlark and our first “Mike Tyson of the Sky” Pom Jaeger of the day.
Moving off the Nine Mile (after gazing awe-struck at the storm-petrels) we headed west across deeper water to encounter our first Leach’s (chapmani) and Red Phalarope. Common Terns were common, seen here and there in flocks of 4, 6 8 or more. Eighteen miles off shore of Point Loma, still in San Diego waters, the call, “Booby!” went out again, making Saturday a two Brown Booby day in San Diego waters, a feat seldom duplicated.
As expected, things slowed down as we crossed up onto the Thirty Mile Bank. We wanted to wake up Sunday at dawn way off the edge of the Continental Shelf in 2+ mile deep water, so we had to “beat feet” across the Thirty Mile towards the San Clemente Basin where we pulled a curious Peregrine Falcon off San Clemente island to check out our gull flocks and encountered our first Red-billed Tropicbird of the trip, flying straight away, high in the sky.
Sunday morning we awoke in deep, deep waters 130 miles west of Point Loma to find a Burrowing Owl, Ruby-crowned Kinglet and Grasshopper Sparrow had adopted Grande as a temporary resting spot. The Burrowing Owl stayed with us until sunset, flying off toward the light on the Bishop Rock buoy at dusk. The kinglet hung around for part of the day, and the Grasshopper Sparrow was caged in a milk crate and fed moths and bread until we reached North Island Monday morning, then released in seeming good health.
Out over and near the edge of the shelf we found a few Least Storm-Petrels and several Leach’s Storm-Petrels of the northern nominate race, more than a dozen Pomarine Jaegers, more than a dozen murrelets (all the ones we could identify were hypoleucus Xantus’s, a Mexico breeder and potential taxonomic split from the scrippsi race) and 4 more tropicbirds - two distant (seen by few) and a pair side-by-side on the water very close to the boat that flew as we approached even closer, giving us a second opportunity to creep up close and photograph them again. We were 55 n miles ssw of San Nicholas Island and 87 n miles wsw of San Clemente Island.
We watched enormous schools of bait fish leaping from the water as if in long transparent “tubes”, lots of California Flying Fish, a half dozen beaked whales (probably Cuvier’s Beaked Whales) Blue Sharks, Blue Whales, Mako Sharks, a very lost Violet-green Swallow and several exceptionally far-out Brown Pelicans. As all on board were studying a close Xantus’s Murrelet, a Fin Whale surfaced unexpectedly not 50 feet off the bow with an enormous exhale, delighting some and startling others. We had great looks at other close Fin Whales as well.
We spent the morning enjoying the sights of the deep water on a day with impossibly calm seas and very little wind (Beaufort zero for long stretches) then made our way “up” the shelf edge from 2-mile-deep water to water about a half mile in depth. We reached the life-zone of the Cortez Bank just before sunset to find lots of activity: a South Polar Skua, Common Terns, Arctic Tern, Sabine’s Gull, more Pomarine and two further-than-normal offshore Parasitic Jaegers, another Northern Fulmar and Sooty and Pink-footed Shearwaters.
The weather, as it often is this time of year, was perfect. The Grande crew was delightful. We entered San Diego harbor as the sun was rising at 6:00 a.m. Everyone had a great time on our five tropicbird, two booby, 10,000 storm-petrel voyage.
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