Sunday September 27, 2020

On Sept. 27, 2020 Alvaro Jaramillo of Alvarosa Adventures chartered our boat for a pelagic trip. Here is an excerpt from his trip report:

The best so far! Yes, that was definitely the birdiest and most diverse of the Monterey pelagics this year. This last Sunday [Sept. 27, 2020], we started off with a big concentration of Risso’s Dolphins, including "Casper" the albino (or leucistic?) individual which has been in the area. Amazing to see. We stayed the entire day in Monterey county, although there was a good swell, we were able to head southwards in deep water.

We had many Ashy Storm-Petrels, sprinkled throughout the day, and a couple of Black Storm-Petrels. Shearwaters were abundant, many Pink-footed as well as Sooty with a good number of Buller’s as well as one super close fly-by Flesh-footed Shearwater! Nice! Buller’s have not been around in numbers yet, so it was great that they are filling in now. Finally, calls of “skua” rang out as their numbers increase at this time of year, three different times it happened, including an amazing chase with a Heermann’s Gull, except the gull was chasing the South Polar Skua. We did see Parasitic and Pomarine jaegers as well, and a bit of a surprise were two Bonaparte’s Gulls offshore. Great views of several Black-footed Albatross, along with Cassin’s, Rhinoceros auklets, many Common Murres of course and both pelagic phalaropes. Super day, with lots of birds out there. Going from foraging flock to foraging flock in with the Humpback Whales was a ton of fun.

Alvaro Jaramillo
Alvarosa Adventures

Monterey Seabirds