Post #119 - Fall Bay Area bike-birding, including DUSKY WARBLER! And Bike-Bird Photography too!

I moved from Los Angeles to San Mateo in May of this year. At that time, I had a partially torn calf muscle and did not do any biking for the first month that I was here. Once June rolled around my leg was well enough to do some local bike-birding, mostly along the flat shores of the San Francisco Bay right out the back of my apartment. My leg has since fully healed, and I have been getting correspondingly more adventurous as the summer has transitioned into fall and the birding has picked-up. Right now, I shoot for one 40- to 50-mile ride each week and whatever shorter jaunts along the bayshore time permits. I've got my last three pelagic trips of the fall this weekend, so once those shut down I'll have a bit more time to dedicate to terrestrial bike-birding.

Seawatching from Moss Beach!

I had a particularly good ride last week, one that took me first over the mountains to Moss Beach. From that vantage I was able to add pelagic species such as Sooty, Pink-footed, and Buller's Shearwaters, 3 birds not traditionally associated with bike-birding. I also had Golden-crowned Kinglet, Fox Sparrow, Lincoln's Sparrow, and White-throated Sparrow, all of which were county bike-birds for me. Later, I rode back through Half Moon Bay where I added Laughing Gull, a nice bird this far north, and another pelagic bird, Parasitic Jaeger. From there is was a bit further south to grab Common Gallinule before again climbing the mountains to return home.

A stop at the beach in Half Moon Bay

Map of my ride.

54 miles, 2500 feet of climbing.

This past weekend was particularly exciting as a Dusky Warbler was found just a mile up the bayshore from my apartment. I jumped on my bike as soon as I received word of the bird and easily bagged it for my San Mateo County Bike List. Dusky Warbler was actually a bike lifer as it was not one of the 618 that I found during my bicycle Big Year in 2014. So that was really cool. It was my first bike-lifer since that effort. if this sounds familiar, that's because Roger Schoedl and I found a Dusky Warbler in Huntington Beach last year. Amazingly, we found that bird on October 8, 2016 and this bird appeared on October 8, 2017!

Dusky Warbler record shots

So, with the addition of that Old World warbler and Merlin on that same morning, I've now pushed my San Mateo County bike list to 180 species (most recent additions at end of post). All of those were collected on out-and-back efforts starting and ending at my home, so zero use of fuel at any point. Minus occasional car-chases for would-be ABA lifers and driving to pelagic trips, I've basically abandoned the car for purely birding purposes. I still use it for photography as that pastime often requires me to lug a lot of gear to wherever I'm going, often before the sun rises. I have, however, found a couple of photographically productive spots on the bayshore to which I can easily ride my bike. So, in that respect I guess I'm trying to make bike bird photography 'a thing' now as well. I'm pretty happy with the results so far, but you can judge for yourself. Those of you paying attention to the shooting info might notice that I've recently added the 5D Mark IV to my arsenal. I'll write more about it at some point, but I'll say now that I'm totally in love with it.

AGAIN, ALL OF THESE WERE TAKEN 

USING MY BIKE - NO CAR!

CLICK ON PHOTOS FOR LARGER, 

HIGHER RESOLUTION VIEWS!

Black-bellied Plover - Pluvialis squatarola

Canon 400mm f/4 IS DO II + 1.4x III on EOS 5D Mark IV

1/4000 at f/5.6, ISO 1250

Willet - Tringa semipalmata

Canon 400mm f/4 IS DO II + 1.4x III on EOS 5D Mark IV

1/5000 at f/5.6, ISO 800

Marbled Godwit - Limosa fedoa

Canon 400mm f/4 IS DO II + 2x III on EOS 5D Mark IV

1/3200 at f/8, ISO 1600

Marbled Godwit - Limosa fedoa

Canon 400mm f/4 IS DO II + 1.4x III on EOS 5D Mark IV

1/5000 at f/5.6, ISO 800

Most recent additions to San Mateo County Bike List

OK, that's it for now. There's a lot of stuff in this post, and I hope at least some of it inspires at least a few of you to ditch the car for a day and try out the bike instead. It's way more fun and rewarding than driving everywhere!

Post #118 - Every bird has a story; Leg bands help tell it!

Hi again! A quick request before we get into the pelicans. I'd ask that if you like my content, please do consider 'Following' the blog. You can do that by clicking the blue 'Follow' Box in the right hand column of the web version as you'd see on your computer. If you are reading this on your phone, you can view the web version by going to the bottom of the post and clicking 'web version'. From there it's the same as above. For your efforts, you'll get an email each time I put up a post (only about once every 7-10 days), and I'll know that you are enjoying my content. It would really mean a lot me, so thanks. OK, now on with the good stuff...

Brown Pelican to set the stage!

I photographed this bird in La Jolla, CA a few years back

In transiting in and out of Pillar Point Harbor on my many recent pelagic trips, I've trying to find and photograph as many banded Brown Pelicans as possible. It's a fun little game, and I usually find between 4 and 6 birds on our slow exit from the harbor as we head out to sea. Alvaro Jaramillo put me in contact with some folks at International Bird Rescue, and I've since been submitting my sightings through the appropriate channels. It turns out that I've photographed pelicans that have been banded by a number of different agencies under a bunch of different circumstances. I am going to share this banding information with you so that you two can report a banded pelicans if you are lucky enough to find one.

Examples of banded Brown Pelicans that I

photographed in Pillar Point Harbor on Sept 14, 2017.

Case histories of some of these are below.

BLUE BANDS: International Bird Rescue places blue bands with with white letters on Brown Pelicans that have been rehabilitated and released from either their San Francisco or Los Angeles centers. The H and M series are several years old; The N series is more current. To report a blue banded pelican, click here. For some more general information on the project, please look here.

GREEN Z BANDS: These bands (also with white lettering) are used by Oiled Wildlife Care Network, and 46 of them were placed individual Brown Pelicans that were oiled (as a result of a crude oil pipeline leak) near Refugio State Beach in Santa Barbara in the spring of 2015. To report a green banded pelican, click here.

WHITE BANDS: White bands with black lettering are used by The Wildlife Center of the North Coast (WCNC) rehabilitation facility in Astoria, Oregon. In collaboration with the Pacific Eco Log (PEL) and the United States Geological Survey (USGS). In 2009, those agencies jointly initiated a banding project to band pelicans on the Oregon Coast. To report a white banded pelican, click here.

RED BANDS: These bands were placed on chicks that hatched in Mexico in the last few years. I am still gathering all relevant information to report these to the appropriate agency, so please check back if you find one of these!

Looking at the photo above, I've submitted reports for 5 of the 6 birds, the red-banded bird being the only exception. So far, I've heard back about the three blue-banded birds and the single white-banded individual. Reports for the blue-banded birds are as follows:

H24: Juvenile, male Brown Pelican. Rescued on 06/04/2011 from Half Moon Bay, CA. Stabilized at Peninsula Humane Society (San Mateo, CA) until transfer to International Bird Rescue's SF Bay Center in Fairfield, CA on 06/05/2011 to continue care. Treated for anemia, emaciation, scabs on the bill and cactus thorns embedded in the feet. Released on 06/24/2011 at Alameda, CA. Sightings: 09/28/2013 at Half Moon Bay, CA; 10/02/2013 at Elkhorn Slough, CA; 07/24/2017, 9/14/2017 (photo indicates missing metal band) at Pillar Point, CA.

M43: Adult, male Brown Pelican. Rescued on 02/18/2012 from Santa Cruz, CA. Stabilized at Native Animal Rescue of Santa Cruz until transfer to International Bird Rescue's SF Bay Center in Fairfield, CA on 02/21/2012 to continue care. Treated for a chest wound consistent with a bite from a California Sea Lion and a toe injury. Released on 03/03/2012 at Santa Cruz, CA. Sightings: 04/20/2012 (Unspecified location); 06/13/2013, 01/01/2015, 01/01/2015 at Santa Cruz, CA; 09/10/2015 at Pillar Point, CA; 12/20/2015, 01/15/2016 at Santa Cruz, CA; 05/08/2016, 07/05/2016, 07/27/2016, 07/28/2016, 08/01/2016 at Pillar Point, CA; 08/06/201 at Half Moon Bay, CA; 08/20/2016 at Pillar Point, CA; 11/13/2016 at Elkhorn Slough; 9/14/2017 at Pillar Point, CA.

N66: Adult, female Brown Pelican. Rescued on 5/20/2017 from Redondo Beach, CA by animal control and immediately transported to International Bird Rescue's LA Wildlife Center on 5/20/2017 to continue care. Treated for emaciation, leg abrasions, anemia and hypothermia. Released on 7/7/2017 at White Point Beach in San Pedro, CA. Sightings: 8/22/2017, 9/14/2017 at Pillar Point, CA.

As for the white-banded bird, I was super stoked and felt like a total badass when I received this certificate for my report. I know you have no life when this is the most exciting thing that happened to me this week.

So, there it is. We now know a least a bird more about a few of the banded pelicans. Beyond knowing, it's a good feeling to contribute to these ongoing research projects. Data in such studies can be very difficult to obtain, so I am sure that any and all reports are greatly appreciated by the respective researchers and agencies. Also, as leg bands will in the future almost certainly be replaced by more advanced electronic tagging methods, it's fun to try to find bands before they become an obsolete tracking method. That's it for now. Now get out there a find a few banded birds of your own!

Post #117 - Quick follow-up to last week's Grebe post

Before we dive into the grebe stuff, I'd like to take a second to ask you to take a look at "A Symphony of Feathers" a writing, birding, conservation, and community project from a friend of mine, Devin Griffiths. Devin and I first met when I lived in Massachusetts. He was a strong supporter of my 2014 "Biking for Birds" project and even interviewed me about it for this, his current project. He's a great writer and great guy, so please take a second to check it out! OK, grebe time.....

For those that didn't read last week's post, I described what seemed to me a colony-wide nesting failure of a large population of Clark's and Western Grebe on a freshwater lake/marsh here in California. Hundreds of birds collectively laid thousands of eggs, but only a few chicks seemed to have hatched. I used this blog to source some hypotheses as to what might have caused such a large scale nesting failure, and I received a few interesting responses.

Western Grebe - Aechmophorus occidentalis

Canon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 IS II on EOS 7D2 Mark II

1/3200 at f/7.1, ISO 400

The first suggestion, as provided by both a blog reader and someone with weekly if not daily access to the colony in question, was that otters were in large part to blame. I didn't know this, but apparently otters are voracious predators, eating all sorts of stuff beyond what I assumed do be a fish-only diet. This idea seems plausible but I do not think is the entire story. I say that for two reasons. First, I spent several days kayaking through the colony and did not see a single otter. There would have to be dozens of them to devour all the hypothetical chicks. Second, many of the eggs hadn't hatched, even well-beyond the 24-day incubation period of Clark's and Western Grebes. Predation of any sort would explain a disappearance of chicks but not the apparent corruption of otherwise intact eggs upstream of that point. So, otters are a best a partial explanation.

Western Grebe - Aechmophorus occidentalis

Canon 400mm f/4 IS DO II + 1.4x III on EOS 1D Mark IV

1/3200 at f/5.6, ISO 400

Other ideas that postulated were water levels or pollution/toxicity though nothing terribly specific beyond that was suggested. Either of these could have widespread effects and affect the nesting success of the entire population. That seems consistent with the colony-wide problems that I observed. Intrusion by boaters was also suggested though my inflatable kayak was the only boat that I saw near the colony on my 3 independent visits. So, unless I was single-handedly responsible for the death of thousands of eggs and chicks, I don't think boating disturbance was the primary (or even a significant) cause. But others might know better on that front.

So, it seems as it the mystery will continue. Interestingly, a colony of Grebes in Clearlake, California experienced similar problems in 2014; From 3,500 nests, only ~20 chicks fledged that year. So, whatever is happening, it seems to be a big deal. We as a community need to keep our eyes on disturbing trends such as these.

More pelagic trips coming up for me, so maybe I'll run into you aboard either Alvaro's Adventures or Monterey Seabirds!

Post #116 - Info sought on grebe nesting failure!

This is a different sort of post as I am really looking for reader input on a bird health/conservation issue that I have recently found curious and disturbing. I am going to speak very generally about large a nesting population of Clark's and Western Grebes somewhere in Northern California. I am doing it this way since I don't want to outright publicize the location, but I am certain that many of you will know the spot to which I am referring. If you do, please just keep it under your hat, thanks. So, with that caveat out of the way, I want to field opinions as to what seems to be a complete nesting failure of a population of several hundred if not several thousand grebes. 

Grebes EVERYWHERE, but no chicks to be found anywhere?!?!?

I first visited this particular location on July 5th of this year, and I was completely blown away by the number of birds I observed. I saw only 1 chick on that visit, but countless other birds were sitting on eggs at that time. I figured I had arrived just on the front end of what was surely going to be an huge hatch-out of grebe chicks in coming weeks. Consulting the Cornell Lab page on Western Grebe, it stated that the incubation period for the species is 24 days. I figured that if I returned in a few weeks, more of the eggs would have hatched by then. You can understand my surprise when I returned on July 24th - 19 days later - and found zero recently hatched chicks. If all of the eggs that I observed on the July 5th were just-then laid, sure, it would make sense that none of them had reached the required 24 days of incubation to hatch. But that seems really unlikely, particular once you read on.

Western Grebe on nest - Aechmophorus occidentalis

Canon 400mm f/4 IS DO II + 1.4x III on EOS 1D Mark IV

1/2000 at f/5.6, ISO 400, handheld

Fast forward to my third visit, on August 13. I thought for sure there would be all sorts of chicks by then, but, again, I found loads of birds sitting on eggs and no chicks (well, one, photo below). At that point I realized that something had to be very seriously wrong as the entire population hatched effectively zero young from what were certainly thousands of individual eggs from hundreds of individual pairs. To complete the timeline, a friend of mine visited the area this past weekend, on September 9, and said that all the nests had been totally abandoned. What the heck is going on?!?!!??

Western Grebe with chick - Aechmophorus occidentalis

Canon 400mm f/4 IS DO II + 1.4x III on EOS 1D Mark IV

1/1600 at f/8, ISO 400, handheld

What was really strange is that the adults looked generally healthy to my eye. Notably, I did not see a single adult bird catch or consume a fish in any of my three visits. That lead me to wonder if a food shortage could have affected the nesting success of the entire population (though that would more likely affect chicks than unhatched eggs)? I also wondered if the unusually heavy rains that Northern California experienced this winter might have contributed. Perhaps increased runoff deposited more of a certain toxin in the water? Altered the sediment composition? Changed the osmolarity, etc? I really have no idea what cold explain the apparent nesting failure, so I'm really grasping for any possible explanation.

So, I am looking to generate some discussion about this topic. I'd love to have what comments people make as official blog comments below. That way they are part of the post and others can read follow whatever discussion we can together generate. So with that, I want to hear what people think is going on with these birds......

Post #115 - Arizona birding! Plus Desert Photography at Elephant Head Pond!

What the heck happened to summer?!?!? It seems as though we've jumped right into fall! With that in mind, I want to quickly rewind to the first week of August, a week that I spent birding and photographing in Southeastern Arizona. Beyond what is fast becoming an annual pilgrimage to that birding Mecca (see Post #72 and Post #73 from last year), this year's trip was additionally motivated by 3 long-staying rarities that I wanted to add to my ABA list: Common Crane in Mormon Lake, Rose-throated Becard on the Santa Cruz in Tumacacori, and Tufted Flycatcher in the Huachucas. I found all three of those birds plus Five-striped Sparrow in California Gulch, so it was a great trip on the birding front, one that pushed my ABA list to 721! Both the crane and sparrow were so far away so as to not be worth photographing, but I did get record shots of the other two.

Rose-throated Becard                           Tufted Flycatcher

As for photography, I spent a wonderful morning at Elephant Head Pond in Amado adjacent to the the Santa Ritas Mountains (Madera Canyon). For those not familiar with this spot, it is desert photography at its finest. Seed and suet are put out every day, and many species  (Gambel's Quail, White-winged Dove, Curve-billed Thrasher, Hooded Oriole, Northern Cardinal, Gilded Flicker, Lucy's Warbler, Pyrrhuloxia, etc) cycle through the property to graze on the handouts each day. There are several blinds, and photographers are free to configure a wide array of perches however they like. The place has recently changed ownership and is now run by world-renowned wildlife photographer Dano Grayson. Dano is a really great guy and has some of the most amazing photography stories I've ever heard, so be sure to engage him if you make it to his place. If you're interested in shooting at the Pond at Elephant Head, you can get in touch with Dano at dano@danograyson.com. Tell him I sent you! I should also mention that Dano has a second set of blinds higher up in Madera Canyon that gets a completely different set of birds (Hepatic Tanager, Black-headed Grosbeak, Acorn Woodpecker, Mexican Jay, etc) than the pond. It's totally possible to spend one day down low and another up high.

With that I'll throw up a few of the shots I collected during my single morning at the pond. The flicker is the bird I most wanted this year. He was lured - only briefly - to this perch by a bit of suet packed into the back of the cholla skeleton. The idea in all of these shots is to get the bird to land on perch that has been positioned to be both fully lit and sufficiently far from the backing foliage that the background is rendered smooth and creamy. For best results, the perch should be at least twice as far from anything in the background than it is from the photographer.

***click on images for higher resolution views, 

particularly those landscape/horizontal oriented***

Gilded Flicker - Colaptes chrysoides

Canon 400mm f/4 IS DO II + 1.4x III on EOS 1D Mark IV

1/3200 at f/5.6, ISO 800

White-winged Dove - Zenaida asiatica

Canon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 on EOS 7D2

1/3200 at f/5.6, ISO 800

Pyrrhuloxia - Cardinalis sinuatus

Canon 400mm f/4 IS DO II + 1.4x III on EOS 1D Mark IV

1/3200 at f/5.6, ISO 800

Do notice that the above two shots both utilize the same perch, albeit at different proportions in the final image. That's always a dead give-a-way for set-up shots. The idea is to make set-ups shots look as natural as possible, and that's really hard to do if the same perch is used repeatedly. Varying perches will alway give the most interesting results. It's also a lot of fun to try to get exactly the bird you want on exactly the perch you want (see also these examples from last year).

These 2 cardinal shots were actually my favorites of those that I collected this year. Believe it or not, they were my first nice shots of this species. They were very common where I lived in Boston (2011-2013), but I was always focused on photographing shorebirds or generally rarer species. I kept assuming that I'd catch up with cardinal at some point but never did - until now!

Northern Cardinal - Cardinalis cardinalis

Canon 400mm f/4 IS DO II on EOS 7D2

1/3200 at f/5.6, ISO 800

Northern Cardinal - Cardinalis cardinalis

Canon 400mm f/4 IS DO II on EOS 7D2

1/3200 at f/5.6, ISO 800

I'll leave you with one technical tip. It is really important when shooting in bright desert sun to be mindful that you don't blow away the whites or completely saturate the colors of bright birds like the cardinal. If you overexpose, you'll lose all that lovely feather detail and be left with birds that look like nondescript blobs.

So, that's it for this installment. I'm sure migration and my upcoming pelagic trips will yield some interesting content in the next few weeks. Beyond that, I head to Taiwan in October and Ecuador in December, so please stayed tuned for recaps of those trips as the year winds down. Cheers!

Post #114 - Bike-chasing California's most famous seabird......

This is a Northern Gannet. It is a large seabird that nests colonially in the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans. On the map below, nesting colonies are shown as green dots, and the wintering range is shown in aqua. They are unique among boobies (Sulidae) because they prefer high, northern latitudes to more tropical climes. Though it's tough to tell from this photo, they are quite large; they average 3 feet in length, and they sport a wingspan of nearly 6 feet. They subsist entirely on fish and such, and they are well-known for their arial acrobatics as they plunge into the ocean in pursuit of prey.

Northern Gannet - Morus bassanus

Cape St. Mary's Ecological Reserve, Newfoundland, Canada

Canon 400mm f/5.6 on EOS 1D Mark IV

1/1600 at f/8, ISO 400

Northern Gannet range

So, why the heck am I writing about an Atlantic seabird in a post about California?!??! Well, in April of 2012 a Northern Gannet appeared on the Farallon Islands, 30 miles west of San Francisco (please see my recent post on the Farallons). Birders were understandably shocked by the first Pacific record of Northern Gannet but were even more surprised by how long the wayward bird stayed on the Farallons - 2 full years! The bird finally disappeared in March of 2014 only to reappear on Alcatraz in San Francisco Bay just two weeks later. It spent that spring and part of the summer in the bay before returning to its more familiar Farallon haunts. Since then, it has bounced between points on those islands, SF Bay, and points along the coast of San Mateo County. The bird generally spends a few months in a particular area before moving elsewhere for an equivalent length of time, and it is occasionally seen from seawatches and on pelagic trips as it transits between its preferred spots. I first saw this bird in Half Moon Bay in February of this year when I came to SF to look for an apartment. At that point, it had been in the Bay Area for nearly 5 years. 

Northern Gannet sightings

April 2012 - August 2017

Since I moved to San Mateo in May, sightings of the bird have been very thin; There was only 1 summer observation, that being on the Farallons on July 17. So, when the bird recently reappeared at Devil's Slide just south of Pacifica on August 2nd, I jumped at the prospect to add the bird to my slowly growing San Mateo County bike-only birdlist. I was in Arizona when the bird was rediscovered, so my first attempt at the bird had to wait a while and ultimately resulted in a 38-mile, round-trip miss; 2,700 feet of climbing to get over the coast range and back made that strike-out hurt even worse.

The gannet has frequented the whitish rock 

outcropping, left of center. Pretty cool that I can

bike to this from my apartment!

Undaunted by failure, I yesterday made a second attempt at the bird and was successful! I spotted the bird among a HUGE feeding frenzy of birds at least a mile from shore. I am familiar with this species from my time in the east, so making the ID at such a distance was very easy. It wasn't doing much, just floating around, but it shortly took off and flew into the rock where it has been seen recently by other birders.

This was taken through my Zeiss Gavia 85 at 60x.

I wish I would show you how many birds 

were to the right of this - thousands!

After that success, I headed south along the coast to do a bit of birding at Half Moon Bay. I headed for the harbor, set up my scope, and surprisingly saw a Northern Gannet sitting on the aptly named Sail Rock 400 yards from shore. Incredibly, the gannet had followed me 10 miles south, returning to a roost it had in the past used though not for the previous 6 months. I thought the whole thing was really fortuitous. 

The gannet in Half Moon Bay, 40 minutes later

My successful gannet chase, complete

with Half Moon Bay extension - 47 miles.

So, of the 130 or so birds species that I've managed to find in San Mateo County using just my bike, this Northern Gannet is by far the best quality bird. Chasing rarities on a bicycle is a horribly inefficient process, but I hope to defy those long odds as I do more of this sort of thing in the future. Finding birds from the bike in an incredibly rewarding feeling, and, regardless of the outcome, I'm staying in good shape. 

It's really cool that this bird has survived and taken up what appears to be permanent residence in Northern California. We often think of wayward rarities as disoriented or weak, and, though that might have been the case when he first appeared, he seems to be doing just fine today. Since he's so large and conspicuous, he's easy to find if he's around. It's because of this visibility that we've been able to track his movements during his California vacation-turned-staycation. 

Lastly, and since this was the week of the great solar eclipse, I'll leave you with the following photo. It's a bit of a departure from my usual style, being as much digital art as photograph. The subject bird was backlit by the setting sun, and I exposed the scene so as to correctly expose the edge of the bird but underexpose everything else. I simply knocked down what few details did come through in post-production to heighten the halo, or eclipse, effect. I hope you like it.....

Great Egret - Ardea alba

Canon 400mm f/4 IS DO II + 1.4x III on EOS 1D Mark IV

1/5000 at f/5.6, ISO 400

Handheld from kayak

Post #113 - Preparing for fall pelagic season! Come visit me in CA!

Sorry to be gone so long! I was in Southeastern Arizona all last week. I had a great time and will certainly post something about that trip once I have all my photos edited. So please stayed tuned. Following the blog will guarantee you never miss a thing (shameless self-promotion, I know)! OK, on with the show.....

Shorebird migration is now well underway here in the Bay Area, and soon other species will be following those migrational pioneers south. Included are pelagic species, species that are so highly oceanic they spend almost all of their non-nesting time far offshore. Albatrosses, petrels, shearwaters, storm-petrels, jaegers, skuas, alcids, and phalaropes all fall into that pelagic category, and one can reasonably expect to see a nice cross section of these birds on any fall pelagic trip from the Northcentral California Coast (Monterey, Half Moon Bay, and Bodega). September and October are prime time, and there are a number of boat/tour operators that can get you offshore to experience the spectacle of pelagic migration. These include Alvaro's Adventures, Monterey Seabirds, and Shearwater Journeys. All of these operators have years of offshore experience and can get you onto to birds and marine mammals that you want to see. I will be acting as a spotter on a number of these trips, so, if you'd like to join me at any point, please see my schedule at the end of the post.

Sooty Shearwater - Ardenna grisea

Canon 400mm f/5.6 on EOS 1D Mark IV

1/1600 at f/8, ISO 400

The New Captain Pete in Half Moon Bay

A fairly typical boat for Central/Northern CA pelagics.

The SoCal boats are much bigger for those that have been on those.

Water temperatures have dropped compared to the previous few years, and there is a ton of food for both fish and birds out there right now. Reports from early season trips (i.e. summer) have been very positive, so the fall is shaping up to be really good! For those thinking about planning a trip to California for pelagics, I will offer a number of suggestions. 

First, pelagic trips are very popular, and spots on the various boats are limited. Make your reservations as early as possible to guarantee yourself a spot! 

Second, think about booking a number of trips if you are coming from far away. One pelagic trip is highly unlikely to show you all the cool things the ocean has to offer. Taking multiple trips will let you maximize what you can see for the cost of the same plane ticket (if you don't already live here!)

Third, if you book multiple trips, you might think about spacing them out a bit. While waters in Central California are usually not terribly rough, don't under estimate the energy you'll use birding and balancing yourself over the course of 8 to 12 hours. There are a lot of trips, so you could come for 6 days and schedule trips on only even days or odd days to give yourself a break between them. Fall pelagics don't usually get weathered out, but spacing them out a bit also buys you insurance in case the wind kicks up for a day or two. 

Fourth, the volume of bird tends to be highest in September but generally more rare birds are seen later in the season, notably October. Do remember that people who have seen a lot of pelagic rarities have taken A LOT of pelagics over the years. Weird/cool stuff can show up anytime, so these are just general suggestions. 

Lastly, plan ahead to avoid seasickness. Everyone's threshold is different, but take what steps you think you need to prevent your day from being ruined by barfing. Ear patches work well but require a prescription (I think), so deal with that beforehand. Dramamine works fine and should be taken 45-60 minutes prior to getting on the boat. Wrist bands are a scam/joke and should be avoided completely. Getting a good night's sleep before the trip, eating small amounts throughout the day, and drinking plenty of water will all help prevent illness. 

The Big and Badass Black-footed Albatross - Phoebastria nigripes

Canon 400mm f/5.6 on EOS 1D Mark IV

1/3200 at f/5.6, ISO 800

A stocky Northern Fulmar  - Fulmaris glacialis (light phase)

Canon 400mm f/5.6 on EOS 1D Mark IV

1/3200 at f/7.1, ISO 400

A note about pelagic photography - it is REALLY HARD! Pelagic birds move really fast and the boat is usually bouncing around, so getting close, sharp images of these speedsters is a challenge. You will need a fast shutter, something certainly less than or equal to 1/1600 with 1/2500 or 1/3200 being preferable. That's not an issue when it sunny but gets much tougher in cloudy conditions. Teleconverters can help in those bright, high contrast conditions but will greatly hinder your efforts to get flight shots when it's cloudy. So, you'll have to adjust based on the day and the conditions. Remember, you can always crank up your ISO to keep your shutter fast and fix the noise on a sharp, in-focus shot later. If a shot is out-of-focus or isn't sharp, they're ain't a thing you can do after the fact!

Fork-tailed Storm-petrel - Oceanodroma furcata

Canon 500mm f/4 IS on EOS 1D Mark IV

1/2000 at f/4, ISO 1600

So, hopefully this gives you at least a bit of info should you be thinking about coming to California for some pelagic birding. Fall is also the best time for terrestrial birding in California, so it would be easy to fill in some land birding around your schedule boat trips. Please feel free to contact me with any questions that you have, and I will do my best to point you in the right direction. It would be great to see some of you out on the water this fall!

My pelagic schedule for this fall - Remember these a just a few of the many tips offered!

Sat, August 26            10hr Half Moon Bay      Alvaro's Adventures

Sun, September 10     10hr Half Moon Bay       Alvaro's Adventures

Sat, September 16       10hr Half Moon Bay      Alvaro's Adventures

Sun, September 17      8hr Monterey                  Monterey Seabirds

Mon, September 18     12hr Monterey               Monterey Seabirds

Mon, September 25     12hr Monterey               Monterey Seabirds

Tues, September 26     8hr Monterey                 Monterey Seabirds

Sun, October 1             8hr Monterey                 Monterey Seabirds

Mon, October 2           12hr Monterey                Monterey Seabirds

Sat, October 7             10hr Half Moon Bay      Alvaro's Adventures

Sat, October 14           10hr Half Moon Bay      Alvaro's Adventures

Sun, October 15           8hr Monterey                 Monterey Seabirds

Mon, October 16         12hr Monterey                Monterey Seabirds