Alcids, Ashies, Albatross, and a Lifer Genital Slit

My second pelagic of the year out of Half Moon Bay was pleasantly birdy to begin with, but let's cut right to it...it got a lot better when we happened into a pod of motherfucking Orcas.

Orcas. One of the coolest, most interesting animals in the world? Easily. People absolutely lit up when we came upon this group, which we were able to stay with for a while.

There was much frolicking, rolling around, tail slapping, general flopping and other things I could describe more scientifically if I was a whale nerd. Isn't that a crazy pectoral fin? The massive width is a good way to identify it as a male.

The wee individual in the front was the smallest member of the pod. It was interesting to see all the different shapes and sizes of dorsal fins.

Tail slappin'.

There was one big, full-grown male in the group - I think he was the one waving his tail around above. He hung out with one other larger individual the whole time, while the rest of the pod stayed together some distance away.

We got stunning looks at these animals, easily the best in my life. The big boy came up right next to the boat...too close to crush! I can't believe I'm lucky enough to get to see stuff like this...the Blue Whales are good enough, this is just excessive.

Orca belly, complete with genital slit. His ween lives in there.

Shortly after we left the Orcas, we got on our bird of the day, this Laysan Albatross. In northern California (off Monterey, Half Moon Bay and Bodega Bay), these birds are much easier to come by in August than later in the season, and this August 19 boat hit the albajackpot. This was the first, and presumably last, I got eyes on this year.

Despite seeing a satisfactory number of them in California over the years, I've never had really great looks at them here. What's up with that? Good thing I got to pet a bunch on Midway.

I've met birders who haven't seen Sabine's Gulls before. Generally, they are not happy people. They have this vacant look, almost like they are empty inside. Not surprisingly, those with regular exposure to Sabine's Gulls are generally bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, though they are not necessarily enjoyable to be around (they are birders, after all).

No deluge of Cassin's Auklets like the previous week, though they were out there. The trick to seeing one well is to find a bird that is too full of food to attempt flying away, and too lazy to dive underwater when the boat comes near. This bird fit the bill.

This was a weird year for storm-petrels...no Blacks at all, which are not only expected up here, but they can often outnumber the other expected species (Ashy, Fork-tailed and Wilson's). Ashy Storm-Petrels did show well in August though.

Ashy Storm-Petrel putting on the brakes, right before dropping to the water to grab a miniscule morsel of food. By the way, the longevity record for ASSP is 30 years...seabirds can live heck of long lives, no matter what the size.

This has been a good year for seeing lots of Red Phalaropes offshore. This is my most adequate crush I can offer you.

This Common Tern made a close pass by the boat. In the greater bay area, it is much easier to find them 20 miles offshore than it is along the coast, though there is seemingly no shortage of good habitat (we have the Forster's Terns to prove it). It would be interesting to know where these birds are coming from...Alberta? The Northwest Territories?

Like many Common Terns, Tufted Puffins can hold dual citizenship, but this bird is likely one of the local breeders on the Farallones.

Despite how easy (relatively speaking) Tufted Puffins are to see during and immediately following their breeding season throughout their range, this is one of those birds that people just don't see very much the rest of the year. The only "off season" TUPU I've ever seen was a deceased bird that washed up in Humboldt County. Where exactly the bulk of the population winters is unknown.

Just a gannet hanging out on Sail Rock. No big deal.

Sooty Shearwaters were doing their normal afternoon thing, streaming by Pillar Point Harbor as we came back in. Another good boat trip in the books!

The Blackfish Giveth: Lifering Over The Cordell Banks

I've seen some Orcas. Not hella, but a handful. I've seen them in the Aleutian Islands (Attu and Buldir), one out of Half Moon Bay, and now one out of Bodega Bay. Shearwater Journeys had a trip out of Bodega Bay last week, and I had the good fortune to be leading that day. In my book, it was a Great Success.

The uncanny thing is that almost every time I see Orcas (and possibly every time...if only I had kept this very important data) I end up getting a life bird the same day...last time it was a double lifer day, with Salvin's Albatross and Craveri's Murrelet. So although many people who have seen Orcas in the wild feel a strong, almost mystical attraction to them, their feelings for The Grampus pale compare to mine.

As you can tell from the dorsal fin, this wasn't a big adult male. This is about as far as it came out of the water...we could hardly see the whites of it's eyepatches. It looked like it was carrying a kill around, thus it's lack of interest/avoidance of the boat and the number of birds feeding on kill remnants (see below).

And as you have deduced by now, I got a life bird.

Let's not waste any time. This was my life bird, one I was really hoping for this fall due to the warm water that has been sitting off the coast for several months now. It is none other than the legendary GUMU (Guadalupe Murrelet), an extremely good bird in northern California and a difficult and unpredictable find anywhere in U.S. waters. Very few have made it this far north in recent years, at least close enough to shore to be found by boats making day trips.

Compared to Scripps's Murrelet, note the longish bill, huge white spur in front of the eye, and also the white kinda creeping up behind the eye, giving the eye a "framed" look.

The bird was quite cooperative, and I have no doubt that everyone on the boat was able to see it. This was the last alcid I needed to see from the eastern Pacific!

Before all the Synthliboramphus excitement, the day began with seeing some familiar faces from SoCal boarding the boat in Bodega Bay, which is a difficult thing to process when you woke before 5 AM, your morning coffee is wearing off and your dementia-inducing seasick medicine is beginning to kick in. Luckily I remembered everyone's names and awkwardness was averted, which in some circles is enough to make me a BIRDING HERO.

As we got a few miles out, the expected fog bank closed in. A (presumable) Wilson's Snipe whizzed by, which was not a bird anybody expects to find offshore. Gulls following the boat began attracting Common/Arctic Terns in decent numbers, which zipped in to view and back into the fog in a matter of seconds. This was odd, since we were not very far out and these terns are typically not very numerous. Once we cleared the fog, the true picture emerged....there were Arctic Terns everywhere. For almost the entire day, one could scan the horizon and see Arctic Terns. There were only a handful of confirmed Commons. Personally, I would guess that I saw 150+ Arctic Terns that day, which is more than I'd seen in my life combined.

When encountering small terns at sea and you have a decent camera, I highly recommend on-the-spot chimping to help confirm the identity of uncooperative terns. That, or have Steve Howell near you at all times. These are both Arctics...check out the almost Sabine's Gullish wing pattern of the young bird on the left.

Note the crisp black edges on the primaries.

I've never had such good looks at these birds before. Hella cooperative.

Here's a classically streamlined, long-tailed Arctic. Of course, as you can see from the above photos, not all of them are going to look like this.



Here is a Common Tern, which looks dumpy and ungraceful (disgraceful?) in comparison. Note the slighly longer bill and the slightly different shape of the "keel". The black on the primaries looks messy in comparison to what Arctics show.

Less numerous but also omnipresent were Sabine's Gulls. We never had a single flock, but they were with us the entire day as well, almost all the way back in to the harbor.

And what do hella small pelagic gulls and terns mean? It means jaegers, obviously. And we did have hella. Only 3 Long-tailed for some reason, but lots of Pomarine and lots of Parasitic, most of which were pretty far offshore. There was much thievery to be had on the high seas with so many small terns and Sabine's Gulls around...here dark and light Parasitic Jaegers team up on a really bummed out Arctic Tern.

A different Parasitic Jaeger, this one a very clean adult.

Black-footed Albatross, Arctic Tern, Black Storm-Petrels, a shearwater sp. and a California Gull all converge on where the Orca made a kill. Pretty cool collection of birds if you ask me.

Pomarine Jaegers do not fear the boat. This bird came right in for a brutal crushing.

Look! Jaeger talons!

Here's one that still has it's spoons, although they look pretty thrashed.

Long-tailed Jaegers remind me of falcons sometimes...I reckon this photo illustrates that nicely.

The cap on a Long-tailed Jaeger is very different from the other jaegers...it's very neat and confined, which for some intangible reason helps make them a cut above the rest..

Yes, we had some skua too. This was my first JAEGER SLAM of the season. It is typical, by the way, to capitalize JAEGER SLAM, in the event you experience one (slammed by one). This is also an extremely typical skua picture, in case you are wondering.

Enough of the kleptoparasites. We also had a single Tufted Puffin on the trip, in Sonoma County waters.

This bird is either going through a gnarly molt or is rapidly evolving into a new sort of penguin-being (interesting if true). I've never seen a healthy-looking alcid look so poorly equipped for flight before.

It was a great way to kick off a grimy weekend of high-quality September birding. I'll be on Debi's Monterey boat this Saturday...see you there.