Back to the Boobies

 

On September 5, we had our second pelagic trip out to Santa Barbara Island (SBI) to view the booby colony there. This trip proved as productive as the first one with several additional species as a result of being further into the fall migration period. The photos in this post are provided by Sue Cook and Brad Hacker.

On our first trip, I had been surprised to see only a single pair of Craveri’s Murrelets, given how common they have been in recent years. It transpired that we just needed to be a bit later in the season (and perhaps with a bit warmer water) as this time we had over 30 Craveri’s, including 7 in view at once. These were the only alcids we saw.

Pomarine Jaeger

Parasitic Jaeger

Compared to the early August trip, where we failed to see a single jaeger, on this trip we saw all three species. Although Long-tailed was the commonest, with over half a dozen noted, we had best looks at a spoon-tailed Pomarine and at least one Parasitic. Sabine’s Gulls were similarly commoner with about eight seen. We were somewhat surprised to see a number of Elegant Terns well offshore as this species is rare on Santa Barbara Island, but this may have been a result of the warmer water, as we have some decent numbers out here before in such conditions. We saw a couple each of Common and Arctic Terns, with a juvenile of the latter sitting on a kelp patty and allowing exceptional views.

Juvenile Arctic Tern

The Sooty and Pink-footed Shearwater flocks again included a single Buller’s  Shearwater, a species that is clearly having an above-average year in southern California waters. The storm-petrel flocks proved initially elusive and we failed to get good looks at any Leach’s-type birds. However, as we climbed out from the deeper parts of the Santa Cruz Basin and headed towards SBI, we encountered large flocks of several hundred Black Storm-Petrels with smaller numbers of Ashy. As we sifted through the storm-petrels flying past the boat, I noticed a rather small one with very deep wing-beats and called it out over the PA system as a probable Least. It came straight at the boat and gave good looks to almost all the participants, even showing off its wedge-shaped tail.

Least Storm Petrel

On arrival at SBI, we lingered off Sutil Rock to scan the booby colony. A couple of Cocos Boobies were sitting on a lower rock at the south end allowing everyone close looks at them, with many more perched higher on the rock. A Blue-footed Booby made multiple fly-pasts and although it proved almost impossible to see perched on the rock, this time everyone was able to see it well in flight. I eventually picked out the Masked Booby sitting high up on the rock. Fortunately, after a few minutes it walked up to the ridge on the skyline where everyone could easily pick it out.

The return trip was a fair bit quieter, with, as ever, a lot of folks ‘checking out’, including myself as I started to feel a little queasy when up on the top deck. We have one more trip this year in mid-October and it will be interesting to see what is present. Hopefully another skua or two and perhaps some more unusual shearwaters.