BIRDSFeathered Friends

Pelagic Birding Off The Coast Of Southern California

The Pacific Ocean is a vast, virtually unexplored frontier, enormous beyond comprehension, replete with seldom seen and little understood birds.  Stretching west 100 miles beneath the waves, Southern California contains submarine ridges, domes and banks which create rich life-zones that attracts a diverse and rich assortment of seabirds: albatross, shearwater, petrels (notably, pterodroma petrels), storm-petrels, auklets and murrelets. 

In addition to the life zones, the edge of the continental shelf is where we find rarely seen seabirds (birds like Laysan Albatross, Red-billed Tropicbird, Murphy’s Petrel, Cook’s Petrel, Flesh-footed Shearwater) and mega-rarities (Short-tailed Albatross, Hawaiian Petrel, Stejneger’s Petrel, Mottled Petrel, Bulwer’s Petrel, Streaked Shearwater, Red-tailed Tropicbird).  Searching for these seldom-seen rarities is the ultimate treasure hunt.   
Pelagic trips are truly trips into the land of the unknown and unexpected, a land of wonder and wonderful things, which is precisely why they are so addicting.  You never know what you will find “out there” even just a few miles out in the Pacific Ocean.

One sunny June morning Peter Ginsburg, Commander, USN (ret) and I were birding with Dave Povey on his 21-foot Parker fishing boat (Dave has done 33 consecutive years of pelagic Christmas bird counts from his boat).   No sooner were we five miles offshore when we spotted an enormous feeding flock of gulls, pelicans, cormorants and terns.  We motored over to find an amazing spectacle: several acres of suction-cupped tentacles protruding 24 inches above the surface of the sea, waving back and forth, surfacing for 2 seconds then submerging, only to reappear a second later — a surreal Alice In Wonderland spectacle of hundreds of reddish-brown “tentacle bushes” waving in the wind.

Neither Dave nor Pete had ever witnessed such an event in their combined 50 years at sea. These were probably Humboldt Squid — also known as Giant Squid — that typically inhabit depths of 2,000 feet but had evidently driven/followed a school of bait fish to the surface — and the birds were having a field day.  These are the types of mind-boggling scenes you find only by being “out there.”

Albatrosses, giant squid, shearwaters, Harbor Seals, murres, mola mola, fulmars, fast Minke Whales, Mew Gulls, scratched up Risso’s Dolphins, leucistic Black-vented Shearwaters, Gray Whales, California Sea Lions, California Flying Fish, skipjack, enormous Blue Whales, Albacore, jaegers, Elephant Seals, Brown Boobies, breaching Humpback Whales, Skua (the pelagic predator of the sky), Sei Whales, alcids, Common Dolphin, kittiwakes, Bottlenose Dolphin, Blue-footed Boobies, albatrosses, Pacific White-sided Dolphin, phalaropes, swordfish, Fin Whales, pelicans, oystercatchers, cormorant, Guadalupe Fur Seals, Arctic Terns — every trip yields a never-ending array of natural wonders never seen by those who seldom venture from their television sets.

For birders, the allure is even stronger — rare seabirds that never come near the mainland.  Within 150 miles of shore are birds that have only been seen by one in 100,000 human beings.  The secret to finding these rare birds (like Laysan Albatross, Red-billed Tropicbird, Murphy’s Petrel, Cook’s Petrel, Flesh-footed Shearwater) and mega-rarities (Short-tailed Albatross, Hawaiian Petrel, Stejneger’s Petrel, Mottled Petrel, Bulwer’s Petrel, Streaked Shearwater, Red-tailed Tropicbird) is to be out there, in deep water life-zones, with knowledgeable leaders who know where and when to look, following temperature and current breaks, chumming, watching, waiting….  and that’s why http://www.socalbirding.com/  was born. 

When you come to visit California to and go out to sea, you will need a good San Diego Hotel, and we recommend Inn at Moonlight Beach, a Bed and Breakfast perched on a hill.  You won’t find better San Diego lodging that the Inn at Moonlight Beach.  

About the Author

Terry Hunefeld is the owner of Inn At Moonlight Beach, a Bed and Breakfast Inn in Encinitas. Terry is an avid birder. He presently serves on the board of directors of the Buena Vista Audubon and the Bird Festival committee of the San Diego Audubon. He serves as the coordinator/compiler for the annual Oceanside Audubon Christmas Bird Count and is the administrator for Buena Vista Auduon Society’s SoCal Pelagic Birding website – a site specializing in chartering boats into the Pacific Ocean to observe seabirds.

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