Fall Pelagics: Blue Whales, Whalebows, Murre[let]s, The Burden

And just like that, the pelagic season has come and gone. I already covered my first two trips of the year, so I figure I can go ahead and wrap up the September and October trips I did out of Half Moon Bay.

The September trip was full of marine life...there was a lot going on offshore. Humpback Whales were present in large numbers, frequently giving great looks near the boat.

Lots and lots of Humpbacks. The sea was boiling with whales. The sea wasn't boiling whales though, climate change isn't that bad yet.

We had nice looks at Blue Whales as well. This is always a major bonus of any trip. I don't think a lot of participants know that this is something they can realistically see on trips here, so there is always an atmosphere of bewildered excitement when one of these surfaces near the boat.

It's always a great honor to get good looks at the largest animal to have ever existed. That's some heavy shit...literally.

The day was bright and sunny, and ultimately bad for photography; I have no crushes to offer you. More importantly, we had good numbers of skuas and jaegers, and hundreds of Sabine's Gulls, the most I had ever seen. The western U.S. has been plagued with them this fall, both offshore, along the coast and on interior lakes; there must have been a bumper crop of them this year.

The real drama came when a Hawaiian Petrel was called out...I was quite convinced (ok, totally convinced) I saw it at one point, but when I chimped my photos, all I could find was a goddamn Pink-footed Shearwater. Great confusion ensued...people were calling it out repeatedly...eventually (after the trip), we all realized that no one had gotten a photo of it and only a couple of the leaders really saw it in the first place. That said, when I was going through pictures for this post, the very first photo of the "petrel" I took shows a bird that...well, it looks like a Hawaiian Petrel, not a Pink-footed Shearwater, but it's so bloody poor that I don't think anything can be conclusively made of it. Did I actually see a Hawaiian Petrel, but it pulled the ol' fucking switcharoo with a shearwater? I do not, and cannot know. This is all very typical, as it would be a life bird and is one of the motivating factors for me to keep getting on boats. So close...so fucking close.

Unlike Hawaiian Petrels, which hate me, the local Northern Gannet loves me now and lets me look at it all the time. Here it is majestically surfing Mavericks.

On the first weekend of October, I led my last pelagic of the year. We were pleasantly surprised early on by the numbers of Black-vented Shearwaters (year bird!) we ran into. Black-vented Shearwaters are very unpredictable north of Monterey Bay, so we're always happy to get them on Half Moon Bay trips.

These little homely shearwaters mostly prefer to spend their lives in inshore waters, though some will venture out over the shelf edge.

Rhinoceros Auklets occasionally allow close approach by the boat, a refreshing change from how they normally react.

It's hard to take interesting scenery photos with no land in sight, but I think this uncropped photo has it all. The excitement of cruising up on a giant feeding frenzy of whales (complete with whalebows), sea lions and seabirds does not ever wane.

One of these murres is not like the other. In fact, one of these murres is not a murre.

2016 is, for me, the year that murres and murrelets come together. I have seen a great many murres and a lot of murrelets, but before this year I've never seen a murrelet of any kind seek the company of a murre. Earlier this fall I found a Marbled Murrelet hiding in the middle of a murre flock next to Sail Rock (famed gannet perch), and then there was this Scripps's Murrelet doing a good impression of a baby murre...what in the fuck is the world coming to?

It's not that unusual I suppose, but novel nonetheless. A pair of Scripps's Murrelets were the most unusual species on this day; they are a difficult bird to come by in October. This was actually the one and only "slow" day I've had offshore this fall...we had no storm-petrels, and for my third trip ever, no Black-footed Albatross. We were in weird, gross brownish water almost the whole time, so I suspect the bulk of the local seabird population were elsewhere.

Lots of Red Phalaropes offshore this fall, outnumbering Red-necked on some days. Most mellow.

Dall's Porpoise...such a good mammal, one of my favorites. This is another one of those species that is neither rare or expected on boat trips here, you just have to hope the boat will blunder into a pod. They do bowride, so you can get great looks, but they are agonizing to try and photograph because they are so fast. Most dolphins are slow and slothful in comparison. You would think that a mammal as big as a person would not be so difficult to crush 15 feet away, but such is life.

The Economy of Style has been absolutely rampant in this post, have you noticed? Black, gray, white, brown, plus a dash of color on the head of the gannet and the bill of the auklet...all part of pelagic birding. Well, no bird off our coast pulls off a limited palette better than a Buller's Shearwater...unfortunately this was another down year for them (locally, anyway) so we only saw a handful, and yet again I will go another year without Flesh-footed Shearwater...unexpected this is. And, unfortunate.

Unfortunate that I know the truth?

No! Unfortunate that you rushed to face him. That incomplete was your training. Not ready for the burden were you...

Sorry. Got a little carried away there. Sometimes dipping on Flesh-footed Shearwater feels like learning Darth Vader is your father.

Brown Wonders...Blue Intimacy...Red Feces

No longer do birders scream "SKUUUAAAAA!!! SKUUUAAAAAAAAA!!!" off the California coast like madmen. With increasingly gnarly seas and so many of our seabirds leaving our waters for their breeding grounds in far off lands, pelagic trips have ceased running for the year. But the birds are still nice to think about, even if they conduct their business in lands and waters beyond our reach.

Few brown birds receive as much love and respect from birders as the skua. Ah, the South Polar Skua, aka "The Brown Wonder". Seeing that they spend half the year in the Northern Hemisphere, I have a feeling that the more politically correct name would be "Bipolar Skua." Right?

There are exceptions, of course. There are many birders who have never seen Flesh-footed Shearwater. We leaders of west coast pelagics get a lot of requests for these birds. Behold its fantastic brownness!

Of course, the bright pink bill lends some character, and adds to the creepy first-cycle Heermann's Gull effect.

On the last Half Moon Bay boat I was on, we ran into a massive mixed pod of Humpback and Blue Whales. They were very close to the boat and made no attempt to keep any kind of distance from us. For a long time we idled in the water while whales slowly frolicked around us.

This pair of blues spent a lot of time very close to us. It was not quite exhilarating but something very, very close to that.

Blue Whale nostrils are large. Especially up close. The explosive exhalation of a Blue Whale is really something to hear, especially when the seas are so calm the only things you can hear are squabbling gulls and other distant whale blows. What a fucking awesome experience.

Blue Whale flukes! There's a couple other surfacing whales in the background.

Humpbacks were plentiful as well. They have (proportionally) larger flukes than Blues and often have big white patches on the ventral side. The undertail pattern is how Humpback researchers can often tell individuals apart.

For your viewing pleasure...whale shit! Wish I could ID it to species. No, that's not bloody stool, that's digested krill remains.

Of course, seeing whale shit is one thing, but any real biologist will want to take it to the next level. We took some poop aboard and Liz #1 did some science on it with her tongue. Marmot assists.

Despite the abundance of Pink-footed Shearwaters offshore, they only breed on three islands off the Chilean coast. Hella vulnerable. A strange thing to consider when they are often the most abundant tubenose to be found offshore.

One of the thousands of things I like about tubenoses is how sleek their lines are when they tuck their feet in and are in cruising mode. They look completely built for flight, much like how I am completely built for birding.

A California Gull is no match for a Pomarine Jaeger on the hunt, even if the gull is the same size as the jaeger. You can actually make out the fish being disgorged in the photo. If only I could have all my food first swallowed by someone else...a boy can dream, right?

Mola Molas can often be spotted near the surface with a handful of attending gulls, hopeful to pick some parasites off the large fish. This is a first year Western Gull.

Molamolamolamolamolamolamolamola

This is a zombie mola. Note the unseeing eye and facial scars of the undead.

Buller's Shearwaters were particularly common this year, with large numbers foraging relatively close to shore. For a few weeks it was even a bird you could see from land, which is not at all typical. The ocean is a fickle thing, and so too are it's birds.

Most Buller's crushes feature the m-pattern on the top side of the bird, but I reckon the stark white underwing is ajust as engaging.

As fall slips into winter, the hordes of Elegant Terns that pillage nearshore baitfish populations retreat south to Mexico. There they will stay until it is time to make sweet sweet tern love again.

All photos taken today are from September and October Half Moon Bay trips with Shearwater Journeys.

September Over Cordell Bank

Well, it turns out that my October 6 boat was not my last pelagic of the year...I wam returning to Bodega Bay today for yet another boat. Why not? This time I am filling the shoes of both Steve Howell and Peter Pyle, which should be really, really easy. In case you haven't heard, I'm #7.

Cordell Bank and Bodega Canyon have amassed a long list of pelagic rarities over the years, and with this being possibly the last pelagic in the area for the year, now is the time to make something happen. Recent reports from there mention lots of albatross right now, which bodes very, very well.

But who knows what will happen...perhaps we will see nothing but Mola Molas all day, you never know. This post covers some of what was on my last Bodega trip, back on September 20.

Black-footed Albatross is often a common bird found on pelagic trips, but my last boat (October 6) somehow missed them altogether...I reckon they are concentrated offshore from Bodega Bay. Next month both adults and subadults alike will return to their breeding colonies in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, and get down to some serious dancing.

Dall's Porpoise are encountered on many pelagic trips...they are fickle bowriders, sometimes enthusiastic about the boat and sometimes completely disinterested. Even when they are swimming right next to you, they are bloody hard to take a photograph of...they are in and out of the water so quickly that you typically only get a picture of a big splash. Anyways...they are black and white, a very modern cetacean.

Pacific White-sided Dolphins are a little more confiding. This is often the most abundant dolphin species to be found offshore.

This photo is hella grainy...photography is hard. Anyway, it's a Pomarine Jaeger.

This is a second-year Long-tailed Jaeger. The stubby bill and slender body confirm the bird is a Long-tailed, but they generally have 2-3 white primary shafts, unlike this bird. Insert tired cliche of birds not reading field guides here.

Another very useful mark for Long-tailed Jaeger is the significant contrast of the secondaries with the rest of the upperwing...it's pretty obvious on the bird's right wing. Unfortunately, I think I have already seen my last Long-tailed of the year.

By the time people are spending more and more time contemplating what they Halloween costume is going to be, Sabine's Gulls have just about finished migrating through California...Black-legged Kittiwakes might be more likely small gull offshore now. Winter is coming...Nothern Fulmars are here, and Short-tailed Shearwaters have just begun to show up.

This South Polar Skua has an eyering, and is adept at shitting.

Just a Pink-footed Shearwater. I like that strange, plated bill, but that eye is something else. It's blacker than black. It has no depth. It is the eye of a creature that knows a fundamental truth that I will never, ever come close to knowing.

Whales have been in abundance this year. This is a Humpback. Whales are great, but they are surprisingly easy to ignore if there are a lot of birds around. This understanding comes with a high GBRS score; other people (and birders) cannot begin to fathom how this could be.

It should be noted that this whale was mortally harmed by the force of me crushing it so hard. Shortly after this photo was taken, the flukes crumpled and fell off it's tail.

The Blue Whale show offshore has been great this year. The seas are loaded with corpulent krill consumers.

Blue Whale flukes are clean, trim and streamlined compared to the rest of the whale's body. For whatever reason they rarely seem to have as much shit hanging off of them as Humpbacks.

Of course, the real highlight of this trip was the storm-petrels...more Fork-tailed than I have ever seen, and more Ashies than possibly ANYONE had ever seen...but I'll leave that for another post.

Offshore Monterey: Mixed Water, A Mixed Bag

Back on September 7, I kicked off three days in a row leading pelagic trips for Shearwater Journeys. This was a boat out of Monterey (probably the only one I'll be on this year). There was some swell to contend with, and we had some difficulty figuring out where the birds were. A lot of the water we found out on the Albacore Grounds looked a bit cold and disgusting (i.e. no "hard edge"), and as expected the birds were not out in force.

We did have acceptable numbers of jaegers (including close to 27 Pomarine) and Sabine's Gulls. This crisp Parasitic Jaeger was going all in on getting this Sabine's Gull to regurge something tasty.

It was one of the few more dramatic moments of the trip. Sabine's Gulls must despise the fact that multiple species of jaegers are following them around all year, all the way from the Arctic to the waters off South America. Talk about a real nemesis bid.

The rest of the flock retreats unscathed.

The highlight of the day for me were a couple of Blue Whales. This is the closest I've seen them. Pictures, of course, do not do them justice.

I previously referred to Blue Whales as behemoths, so today I will call them leviathans. Late summer and fall is a good time to see them off California, as the migrate south for the winter.

I get a lot of questions about how to tell phalaropes apart. This plump, short-billed creature is none other than a Red Phalarope. Red-necked is smaller, slimmer, with a longer, thinner bill...they're not too difficult to tell apart in flight if you get a good enough look. A lot of Red-neckeds moving through are juveniles, which are distinctly darker-backed than Red.

Sooty Shearwater was the most abundant bird of the day, which is to be expected this time of year. Short-taileds will be arriving in a few weeks, which we should all be ready for. You may have noticed that I set myself up for a good little Short-tailed discussion, but what could I mention that isn't already in your field guide? Down with redundancy.

Oh, some Sooty Shearwaters have white chins...you won't find that in the field guides. Now you know.

Pink-footed Shearwaters are very common as well. I like the lighting on this bird.

Here is a bird in harsh afternoon light...I prefer overcast. Aside from Red vs. Red-necked Phalaropes, I notice a lot of Pink-footed Shearwaters mistakenly get called Buller's Shearwaters...other than the standard differences in size, flight style and underpart color, it's worth mentioning that Pink-foots are freshly molted right now, and can look hella contrasty on the upperwing, reminiscent of Buller's at first glance.

It's impossible to resist the urge to photograph Black-footed Albatross, no matter how many I've utterly destroyed with my camera over the years. That's a juvenile Western Gull next to it, for size comparison.

Dark-rumped birds like this one are younger and not as world-weary. It's nice to see these optimistic, exuberant individuals before they are mentally crushed by too many seasons of failed breeding and watching their friends choke on plastic action figures plucked from the North Pacific Gyre.

Right. Who said that?

Here is a homely-looking Pomarine Jaeger. Gross.

Overall, not a bad day on the water; a pair of Baird's Beaked Whales, a big pod of Common Dolphins, Arctic Tern and a handful of Buller's Shearwaters were nice. We only found a paltry 7 Ashy Storm-Petrels, but we found the motherload the next day off of Half Moon Bay. Noteable misses were Long-tailed Jaeger and South Polar Skua...can't win 'em all!