So Cal Pelagic Birding
Pelagic Trips And Deep Water Expeditions

Searcher is a spacious, luxurious 95-foot live-aboard with multiple birding observation decks.  Trips are limited to 28 passengers and 4 leaders to ensure plenty of room.  Guests enjoy 4 clean bathrooms, 2 hot showers and 14 air-conditioned cabins.  Delicious meals, snacks and beverages are included. 

Expert spotters/leaders and a crew that understands how and why birding is different than fishing greatly increase the odds of finding great birds and ensuring all participants see the birds.  Every trip has a “lifer” rarity for 95% aboard, birds like Dark-rumped (Hawaiian) Petrel, Cooks Petrel, Laysan Albatross, Murphy’s Petrel, Bulwer’s Petrel, Manx and Flesh-footed Shearwater, Fork-tailed Storm-petrel, Xantus’ and Craveri’s Murrelet, both Red-billed and Red-tailed Tropicbird.  Visit the Searcher website for bird lists of every trip since we began in 2003. 

Itinerary

Searcher departs Monday at noon.  We'll bird our way north to the Channel Islands for the balance of the day. Tuesday we'll explore pelagic birds in the vicinity of the islands and then head to deep water at the shelf edge.  Weather, currents, seas and bird distribution determine our exact course, but we'll spend Wednesday and Thursday more than one hundred miles offshore at the edge of the Continental Shelf - about as far south and west as you can go in the ABA area. 

We'll explore life zones in deep waters where southern hemisphere birds are usually found only by research ships – because no day trips venture this far.  We’re hunting mega-rarities, birds with fewer than 10 accepted records in all of California - the birds that people whisper about.

We’ll spend all 15 hours of daylight Wednesday & Thursday in the albatross/pterodroma/tropicbird zone.  Thursday evening at dinner we'll celebrate our sightings, go to sleep and wake up at sunrise Friday morning back in San Diego. 

Cost:  $975 includes all meals, snacks (home-made muffins and cookies!) and beverages including soda, coffee, beer and wine. 

Room for only 28 passengers.
Reserve your spot now:
Visit Searcher's website or telephone boat owner Celia Condit at (619) 226-2403

Questions?  Email searcher@bajawhale.com or call Celia at  (619) 226-2403

Departure point:
Fisherman's Landing
2838 Garrison St
San Diego, CA 92106
(619) 221-8500

Todd Easterla has been birding since he was eight years old, not counting the earlier days when his dad would stop the car on vacations to collect fly-by specimens. His father, Dr. David Easterla, teaches at the University of Missouri and is co-author of Birds of Missouri. Todd was raised on birds and birding.  Todd has worked as a tour leader and contract biologist and operated Pterodroma Tours to pursue offshore species. He has been leading pelagic trips in California for 19 years. 

David Pereksta pereksta@pacbell.net is a Supervisory Fish and Wildlife Biologist for the US Fish and Wildlife Service, where he works to conserve habitat for threatened and endangered species and migratory birds.  Throughout his career with various Federal and State agencies, he has studied several imperiled bird species including snowy plovers, piping plovers, least terns, ospreys, northern goshawks, brown pelicans, and spotted owls.  Recently, David has assisted Cornell University in their searches for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker in Arkansas during the 2006, 2007, and 2008 field seasons.  An avid birder for nearly 30 years, he has birded throughout North America and the American tropics, including leading trips to Belize, Costa Rica, and Peru.  David has been an active participant in southern California pelagic trips since 1994 and has been a regular leader for Los Angeles Audubon, The Searcher, and The Condor Express since 2000.

Jon Feenstra feenstra@alumni.caltech.edu is a native of Appalachian New Jersey and a life-long outdoors enthusiast. He moved to Los Angeles in 2000 to continue his education and holds a PhD in chemical physics from Caltech. However, since birds are his true passion, he works as a freelance environmental consultant so he can spend every day outside.  His is a co-author, along with Todd McGrath, of the foundational articles in Los Angeles Audubon's journal outlining the current knowledge of seabird distribution in the Southern California Bight. If there's a boat out looking for birds off Southern California,  Jon is on it.

What will the next mega-rarity be?  We don’t know, but a look at the past 5 years of Searcher history shows that every trip has a lifer for 95% of all onboard:  birds like Dark-rumped (Hawaiian) Petrel, Cook's Petrel, Laysan Albatross, Murphy’s Petrel, Bulwer’s Petrel, Manx and Flesh-footed Shearwater, Fork-tailed Storm-petrel, Xantus’s and Craveri’s Murrelet, both Red-billed AND Red-tailed Tropicbird. 

Last year in June and July, dozens of Cook’s Petrels were seen off the coast of San Diego and Baja.  Other expected species include Black-footed Albatross, Red-billed Tropicbird and Flesh-footed Shearwater (all Searcher specialties).

Rarities and mega-rarities we’ll be on the lookout for this June include:

Short-tailed Albatross: seen off Santa Cruz Island 5 Jul 2005. 

Stejneger's Petrel: Only 3 SoCal records, 2 of them in July. 

Tufted Puffin: rare and irregular Jan – June. Seen in the Channel Islands 5 Jun 2005 and May 2002. 

Hawaiian Petrel: could be seen anytime April – September over deep water.  11 of 14 accepted records in the state are June-September, remaining 3 records are spring – April & May.  One seen from shore at Point Dume Los Angeles 12 Aug 2006.

Here’s more rare birds that have shown up along the California Coast in June:

Swallow-tailed Gull!
Crested Auklet!
Parakeet Auklet!
Red-footed Booby!
Masked Booby!
Cook’s Petrel!
Hawaiian Petrel!
Murphy’s Petrel!
Least Auklet!
Red-billed Tropicbird!
White-tailed Tropicbird!

The Dream 
Out on the Pacific Ocean, under the sun, riding the swells with the clean fresh breeze on your face, days blur into a soft dream.  Time slows, even stands still, as you become more and more disconnected from the hustle and bustle of the “real” world. No cell phones. No computers. No traffic. No meetings. Nothing but sunshine, whales, birds, people who love birds and birding.  THIS, is the real world... the ultimate adventure.  That “other” world, the one you left behind is... so... far... away...