SoCalBirding.com

By Terry Hunefeld

Dave Povey was joined on his 21 foot Parker fishing boat by Tom Blackman, Peter Ginsburg and Terry Hunefeld on Thursday April 8 for a trip to the Nine Mile Bank.

Exiting the harbor, we found the wintering Long-tailed Duck further west than its usual spot, at the end of the Cabrillo National Monument directly underneath the visitors center. A scope from the end of the Bayside Trail would have had great views.

On the way out to the Nine Mile Bank we enjoyed a smattering of Xantus's Murrelts, Rhinocerious Auklets, Sooty, Pink-footed and Black-vented Shrearwates but things didn't really heat up until we hit the Nine Mile. Everything there became more regular.

The Pink-footed Shearwaters aren't back in numbers, but 16 of them (one at a time, heading north) indicated that we're in the beginning stages of migration. Sooties were in even higher numbers, racking up 39 for the day. They're back!

Xantus's Murrelets were most plentiful in the Coronado Canyon area: 16 total for the day.  A California Sealion chowing on the tentacle of a giant Humboldt Squid was fun - the gulls were right in there trying to get their share forcing the sealion to dive.

Black-vented Shearwaters were still around, too, tallying 46 for the day, most of them near the Coronado Canyon just across the border.

Cruising south down the Nine Mile we encountered 4 Bonaparte's Gulls, two of their heads in breeding plumage and two molting.

At the islands we counted 22 Brown Boobies at Booby Rock (4 on nests) and another 2 flying off South Island. We found our hybrid oystercatcher and five Blacks. Brown Pelican numbers were way down on the islands compared to previous years - we only counted about 30 there.