STORM-PETREL EXTRAVANZA
1200 LEAST STORM-PETRELS SEEN AT
THE NINE MILE & THIRTY MILE BANK
GRANDE - San Diego
Oct 3, 2009 7:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.
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| Trip Track courtesy of Matt Sadowski |
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| Mixed (Least and Black) Storm-Petrel Flock (c) Matt Sadowski |
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| Black and Least Storm-Petrels (c) Eric Kershner |
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By Paul Lehman
TWELVE oystercatchers on Ballast Point (west side of submarine base) as we headed out of the harbor at about 7:30AM: one AMERICAN, 1 HYBRID, and TEN Blacks. Presumably these birds are the same ones--in part--that have been seen off and on for the past several years or so either at Ballast Point, on the nearby Zuniga Jetty, or around the tip of Point Loma up at the tidepools.
1 breeding-plumaged RED-THROATED LOON flying south a few miles off Point Loma was exceptionally early for a migrant (but may be in keeping with the early Pacific Loon and Surf Scoters also seen recently)
About 1400-1900 storm-petrels mostly on 9- and 30-Mile Banks (included two large roosting flocks), were about 60-70 percent LEAST and 30-40 percent Black.
About 600+ Common Terns between the Nine and Thirty Mile Banks attractinga good number of Parasitic and a few Pomarine Jaegers
About a dozen Sabine's Gulls, mostly over 9-Mile Bank, was also a good count locally.
One SOUTH POLAR SKUA over the 9-Mile Bank
Many hundreds of Black-vented Shearwaters (mostly over the Nine Mile Bank) with a fair number of Pink-footeds, but just a couple Sooties.
2 Craveri's Murrelets that only a few people got to see well (were welloffshore), plus a Rhinoceros and a few Cassin's Auklets.
Several large shorebird flocks well offshore, heading south, but mostly left unidentified other than one flock of dowitchers. NO landbirds were seen around the boat.
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Trip List (thanks to Matt Sadowski and Dave Povey)
Red-throated Loon 1
Pink-footed Shearwater 30
Sooty Shearwater 1
Black-vented Shearwater 1030
Black Storm-Petrel 700
Least Storm-Petrel 1200
Brown Pelican 20
Brandt's Cormorant 4
Double-crested Cormorant 2
Whimbrel 1
Dunlin 1
dowitchers (Long-billed calls heard?) 45
Red-necked Phalarope 240
Red Phalarope 6
Sabine's Gull 21
Heermann's Gull 50
Western Gull 150
California Gull 15
Common Tern 690
Elegant Tern 25
South Polar Skua 1
Pomarine Jaeger 7
Parasitic Jaeger 22
jaeger sp. 4
Craveri's Murrelet 2
Cassin's Auklet 3
Rhinoceros Auklet 2
Blue Whale 2-3
Risso's Dolphin 5-6
Pacific White-sided Dolphin 10
common dolphin sp. 50+
Elephant Seal 2
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| Sooty Shearwater (c) Eric Kershner |
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