One more off my bucket list... a sea-bird boat trip off the west coast of the US. An all-day trip over the deep-water canyons off Monterey produced fantastic numbers of sea-birds, not so much variety as still a little early but nevertheless a fantastic experience. To start with I did manage a handful of US ticks, rather disappointingly all stuff I have seen in the UK: Northern Fulmar, Common Guillemot, Arctic Skua and Red-necked Phalarope.... but then the new ones were Flesh-footed Shearwater and a fine Tufted Puffin. The sort of numbers were 50+ Black-footed Albatross, c.10,000 Sooty Shearwaters, several hundred Pink-footed Shearwaters, three Arctic Skuas, 100+ Red-necked Phalaropes, 100+ Common Guillemots, c.20 Pigeon Guillemots, three Rhinocerous Auklets and the Gulls included Western (100's), Herring Gull, Heerman's Gulls, and several California Gulls. A shame not to get any petrels or rarer shearwaters but am not complaining; something to do another day. Here are a few photos from this trip.
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| Black-footed Albatross |
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| Black-footed Albatross |
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| Pink-footed Shearwater |
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| Pink-footed Shearwater |
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| Pink-footed Shearwater |
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| Sooty Shearwater |
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| Sooty Shearwater |
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| Brown Pelican |
Thanks for the post - I'm looking forward to a pelagic in the same area in a couple of weeks. I thought you might like to know that your "Flesh-footed Shearwaters" are all Pink-footed Shearwaters. It's a confusing pair of names, but Flesh-footed is an all-dark bird that is regular but rare in that area.
ReplyDeleteThank you Ryan, you are quite right a slip of the finger.... I knew what I meant!
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