We saw well over a hundred Cory's Sheartwater on the trip plus several Great Shearwatres and Black-capped Petrels and a few Audubon's Shearwaters and a single Bridled Tern. We also saw Common Porpoise, Bottleneck Dolphin and Pilot Whales. Plus a Hammerhead Shark swimming near the surface. We were on a fishing charter boat and Charles had lines in the water and caught a Yellowfin Tuna and a Dusky Shark.
With 5 lifers I would not call this a bad day's birding but this pelagic was as dull as the one from Half Moon Bay a year ago: Lots of energy spent worrying about the roughness of the sea (which turned out to be very calm); having to get up at 4am leaving me tired all day; 2-3 hours each way getting to/from the birds with nothing much to see; and long periods spent with just a distant bird to look at interspersed with short periods of excitement. The good news is that I now have all 7 ABA Code 1 albatross/petrel/shearwaters and 4/7 of the Code 2s (but I have done poorly with just a single Storm Petrel).
 |
| Common Tern |
 |
| Cory's Shearwater |
No comments:
Post a Comment