As anxiously as I await the return of neotropical migrants each spring, their arrival is admittedly a bit bittersweet since it signals the looming departure of shorebirds, my favorite and most obliging local photographic subjects. Since I moved to the Bay Area exactly a year ago, I've learned a ton about shorebird distribution and behavior, particularly as I tend to visit the same spots over and over. I know which species can be found and photographed on which tides, and I understand how the light and angles change through the seasons. In some ways, I feel that photography has opened me up to a level of behavioral study that traditional birding and its often listing-centric approach completely misses. These last two weeks have been particularly exciting as most of the birds have molted into the breeding garb ahead of their own migration back to the arctic. Here are a few shots to send the bird off. I hope you enjoy them.
***Click all images for nice, higher resolution view***
Long-billed Curlew - Numenius americanus
Canon 500mm f/4 IS + 1.4x III on EOS 5D Mark IV
1/3200 at f/5.6, ISO 800
Short-billed Dowitcher - Limnodromus griseus
Canon 500mm f/4 IS + 1.4x III on EOS 5D Mark IV
1/1600 at f/5.6, ISO 1000
Black-bellied Plover - Pluvialis squatarola
Canon 400mm f/4 IS DO II on EOS 5D Mark IV
1/3200 at f/5.6, ISO 640
Western Sandpiper - Calidris mauri
Canon 500mm f/4 IS + 1.4x III on EOS 5D Mark IV
1/3200 at f/5.6, ISO 640
Breeding plumage Dunlin had been a particular photographic nemesis, so I decided to take control of that matter this week. Realizing the birds were in beautiful plumage bit would be gone very soon, I decided to crawl a long way out on the bay mudflats to get the shot I wanted. It took about an hour and half of crawling and pausing, but they finally got completely used to me and let me do my thing.
Operation Dunlin - here was my track.
I probably crawled 60-70 yeards.
And here's what I looked like afterwards.
Dunlin - Calidris alpina
Canon 500mm f/4 IS +1.4x III on EOS 5D Mark IV
1/3200 at f/5.6, ISO 640
I can't wait for these guys to return in the fall! As for what will happen the next few months, I probably spend a lot of time photographing terns, though I'll have to drive south on the bay to best do it. Otherwise, summer birding and photography is kinda slow around here, so I'll have to work really hard to scrape out shots in the next few months. Gotta get a good Pigeon Guillemot flight shot in Pillar Point Harbor.....
This past Monday, Rob Furrow, Josiah Clark, Sam Saffron, and I set out to break the California bicycle Big Day record of 187 species established by Rob and Josiah in 2015. Our route was a permutation of that record-setting route, and we hoped that an additional two pairs of eyes would be enough to push us beyond that benchmark. Conditions Sunday night into Monday were about perfect; there was little overnight wind and temperatures were in the low-50s when we assembled at 2am in Half Moon Bay. We spent the next 20 hours on our bikes, and our route was roughly divided into 4 legs. Those were, very roughly:
LEG 1 - The Coast (2am - 9:45am): coastal slope owling, Princeton Harbor, ocean, Pillarcitos Creek, Highway 92, and Skylawn Cemetery
LEG 2 - Cañana Road (9:45am - 11am): Crystal Springs Reservoir, mixed oak woodlands, chapparal, and neighborhoods to SF Bayshore
LEG 3 - SF Bay (11am - 4pm): San Francisquito Creek mouth, Palo Alto Baylands, Shoreline, Lower SF Bay, Alviso
LEG 4 - Ed Levin (4pm - 10pm): Coyote Creek, Ed Levin, Upper Calavaros Road, Alviso (again)
OK, with that outline, let's get rolling!
Leg 1 - The Coast (2am - 9:45am)
We immediately found Great Horned Owl and Barn Owl along Highway 1 and clapped-up a Sora at the Verde Road Pond as we made our way up Purismo Creek Road. Northern Saw-Whet Owl was a great heard-only bird along that route, and we crossed over to Burleigh Murray to add a vocalizing, predawn MacGillivray's Warbler. After that we shook off a flat tire and headed north towards Princeton Harbor for the dawn hours.
Biking south down Highway 1 at 2:30am
We taped Virginia Rail at Mavericks, surprised a Wandering Tattler at the base of the jetty, and climbed the bluffs to find two Marbled Murrelets on the ocean. After that, we made a brief stop at Venice/Pillarcitos for gulls. Though both Laughing and Glaucous had been scouted in the days before our effort, we mustered only Western, California, Herring, and Glaucous-winged. The general lack of Larids (Heermann's, Mew) with the combined misses of Brant, Brown Pelican, Sooty Shearwater, Pink-footed Shearwater, Horned Grebe, and Surfbird meant we did adequately but not outstandingly on the ocean. We were never going to find all of those misses, but we really needed at least a few of those to complement the tattler and the murrelets.
Burleigh Murray flat tire at 4:00am
We did salvage some nice land birds as we climbed up Highway 92 towards Skyline: several Olive-sided Flycatchers, an early Swainson's Thrush, and a singing Pacific Wren. Skylawn Cemetery yielded Red Crossbill and Pine Siskin with minimal effort. We were at 102 species by the time we dropped from Skylawn at 9:45 - on perfect schedule.
Leg 1: ~ 31.6 miles (2am - 9:45am)
Leg 2 - Cañana Road (9:45am - 11:40am)
The coast behind us, we continued down Highway 92 to reach Cañada Road. We missed both Ring-necked Duck and Wood Duck on Crystal Spring reservoir, the first mostly due to seasonality and the second mostly due to chance. But we did add Grasshopper Sparrow, Lazuli Bunting, Black-throated Gray Warbler, singing Cassin's Vireo, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, Vaux's Swift, and host of raptors along Cañada. We descended along Woodside Road and wound our way through the contrasting neighborhoods of Atherton and East Palo Alto before hitting the bayshore. We were at 126 species at that point.
Leg 2: ~ 21.5 miles (9:45 - 11:40am)
Riding along Crystal Spring Reservoir at 10am
Leg 3 - SF Bay (11:40 am - 4pm)
We timed our bay arrival to the falling tide so as to add shorebirds on the exposed mudflats. We were mostly on schedule but the tide was a bit farther out than expected, which, coupled with heat shimmer, made the birding tougher than it needed to be. We filled in most of our missing shorebirds but missed Red Knot and Ruddy Turnstone because of tide and heat. Beyond shorebirds, we dug out Common Goldeneye, Northern Pintail, Canvasback, and Ridgway's Rail. Our transit through the Baylands turned up Bald Eagle and a surprise Lesser Yellowlegs. Alviso and surrounds yielded Burrowing Owl and a single Red-necked Phalarope. We managed to grind out only a single Cinnamon Teal but missed Blue-winged Teal, Wilson's Snipe, Say's Phoebe, and Eurasian Wigeon. We had 165 species by the end of this leg.
Leg 3: ~18.6 miles (11:40 - 4pm)
San Francisquito Creek Shorebirding at noon
Leg 4 - Ed Levin (4pm -10pm) We had biked ~72 miles by the time we started this final leg, so fatigue was starting to set in. We detoured along Coyote Creek to add Yellow Warbler then headed east towards Ed Levin Park. Reaching that destination after some painfully steep and very hot climbing we added Wild Turkey, Green Heron, Golden Eagle, American Kestrel, Rufous Hummingbird, Yellow-billed Magpie, White-breasted Nuthatch, House Wren, Western Tanager, Lark Sparrow, and two singing Rufous-crowned Sparrows. Climbing even farther up Calaveras Road (not exactly mapped due to Google thinking road is closed) we notched Rock Wren and Western Screech-Owl. We then turned around and dropped all the way back to Alviso where we dipped on Black Rail to end the day. At 10pm we were out of birds, so we closed up shop.
Summary We finished with a very respectable 178 species in our 20 cycling hours. In that time we rode almost exactly 100 miles and climbed well over 4,000 vertical feet. It was a really fun day and a great introduction to bike Big Days. This was very different than anything I did on my 2014 bike Big Year, mostly because of the combined amount of riding and birding over those 20 hours. The time pressure was more acute, and it was frustrating to have to leave areas so soon after reaching them. But we had to keep moving so as to make sure we spent adequate time in each habitat and reached everywhere we wanted to bird.
Now that I've had a full run-through, I have a good idea what to expect on future iterations. This route has been adapted by Rob and Josiah over the past few years, and they should really be commended for their pioneering bike-birding efforts. Hopefully Sam and I will be able to offer some constructive suggestions for next year, and I know that with additional attempts we should be able to mount another challenge to the still-standing California record of 187 (the national record is 193 from Texas). Side note I actually rode my bike to Half Moon Bay on Sunday afternoon (~15 miles) and home from Alviso on Tuesday morning (~30 miles) so that I could count all the birds we found on the Big Day on my Bay Area Green List as well. With the additions of Golden Eagle, Wandering Tattler, Northern Saw-whet Owl, Cassin's Vireo, Yellow-billed Magpie, Swainson's Thrush, Lazuli Bunting, and Rufous-crowned Sparrow, my Bay Area Green List now stands at 250 species.
***Bike Big Days and bike Big Years need not start and end in the same place. That would penalize anyone living in a less-than-ideal area. There's also no point in requiring the loop to be closed if people are going to drive somewhere optimal to start and end anyway. As long as the whole route is self-powered, that's all that matters. True Green lists, however, necessarily be accrued from a single point (like my San Mateo apartment, for example).
How the heck did I not write for the last month? So sorry, but I'm back now. Let's get going! As each new spring arrives, birders reacquaint themselves with northbound migrants that spent the winter at more southerly latitudes. When I lived in the Northeastern US, Eastern Phoebes and American Woodcocks were always the first spring arrivals, and now that I'm in California Hooded Orioles and Wilson's Warblers are the annual pioneers. With that influx of migrants on top of lingering wintering species, species diversity is usually highest in spring in many places across North America. And those circumstances invite the one of the most entertaining sorts of bird projects - Big Days! I have never actually been involved in a Big Day, so it's only fitting that my first will be a bicycle-based effort here in the Bay Area with bicycle Big Day gurus Rob Furrow and Josiah Clark at the end of this month.
It's tough to beat this view...
Rob and Josiah have been doing this for a number of years and have painstakingly optimized the route over that time. This year we are going to ride a permutation of their 2015 route along which they amassed an incredible 187 species. We will start high enough on the Pacific side of the coastal mountains to collect predawn owls. We'll then head down to Pillar Point for dawn migrants, harbor birds, and seabirds. From there it will be over the coastal mountains, hopefully collecting a few finches en route. After descending we'll hit the bayshore for shorebirds and waterfowl before continuing beyond the bay and gain a bit of elevation into hotter, drier habitat in the late afternoon. As the sun sets we'll head back down to the bayshore to search for Black Rail and a few other nocturnal birds. As mapped, the route will be ~85 miles with around 4,000 feet of total climbing, but it'll probably be closer to 95-100 miles once we drop back down to the bay for the night. We'd love to find 190 species, but that will certainly take some luck!
Street view of the route. Mileage indicated every 5 miles.
Satellite/Topo view of the route
The trick with any Big Day, bicycle or other, is to visit at many different habitats as possible without spending too much time in any one of them. It's therefore important to have a premeditated idea/timetable of how much time should be spent in each habitat. Big Days are infinitely more time sensitive than are Big Years, so that will be a bit of an adjustment for me given my 2014 Big Year experience. Ron and Josiah have worked all this out, so I'll just move whenever they tell me to!
I've cycled more than 90-100 miles in a day many times but usually in big chucks with just a few breaks along the way. We'll be doing a lot of starting and stopping, so it might be tough to get into a good rhythm along this route. I'm in decent (but not great) cycling shape right now, so I think I'll be able to manage it regardless. I'm actually more curious about how I'll maintain birding focus since I've never done any sort of Big Day before, but I'm sure Rob and Josiah will keep me on track. It will also be really interesting to see what effect my extra pair of eyes will have, particularly along the coast where scanning massive amounts of open water is the most likely way to add additional and oddball birds.
So, that's a very general idea of how we expect out bicycle Big Day to unfold. Right now we are hoping to make April 23 the day, but some of that will depend on wind and weather. April 30 is also an option, but that's a bit later than ideal as we're cutting it close on lingering waterfowl anyway. I'm hoping to take a few videos at points along our route, and if I can manage that I'll be sure to share them in the blogpost that will recap our efforts. Please stay tuned!
First - Please check out the Ecuador piece that I wrote for the Nature Travel Network. It distills my 5 Ecuador posts down to a much quicker read! Since I spent a good chunk of this past Saturday successfully chasing a continuing Broad-billed Hummingbird in San Francisco (a county first), I figured it would be a good time for an update on my most recent Bay Area bike-birding exploits. After that I'd like to spend a bit of time discussing the recently-popularized 5-Mile Radius and how it could provide the perfect gateway into bike-birding. Here's a map of my route to the hummingbird. It was 22.6 miles each way plus ~5 miles around Golden Gate Park afterwards for ~50 miles total. I didn't bother with the camera since it adds much weight for what would have been crappy record shots anyway.
My one-way route to SF. I rode in it 1:31 (15
MPH ave), much faster than the 2:10 Google
suggests. Return trip 15 mins slower with traffic.
Broad-billed Hummingbird was species #236 that I've found from my bike since moving to the Bay Area last May. The vast majority of these have been observed in my home San Mateo County, but I've tacked on a few additional birds by venturing into neighboring San Francisco and Santa Clara Counties. The most notable species that I've added so far, beyond the hummer, are Red-footed Booby, Dusky Warbler, Tufted Duck, and LeConte's Sparrow, the last of those being a county first and technically rarer in my home San Mateo than any of those others with at least 2 county records each. It's also fun that I've found pelagics like Ancient Murrelet and Buller's Sheartwater alongside the more terrestrial likes of Burrowing Owl, Lewis's Woodpecker, Lucy's Warbler, and Red Crossbill. So yeah, bike-bring around here is really good. I'm really hoping to fluff up my list this spring or summer with ~10-day loop to the Sierras and back, and I'm hoping to get my total towards 300 by year's end. That will only take a couple thousand miles of cumulative riding, so stay tuned.
California state view
County view
I am also hoping to join Bay Area bike-birders Josiah Clark and Rob Furrow on their annual spring bike Big Day in late-April. A recently-materialized trip to Honduras in the middle of that month might make that impossible, but I am going to do everything that I can to make it happen!
OK, with all that as backdrop, I want to discuss the recently materialized 5-Mile Radius (5MR). The idea of the 5MR is to outline a circle with a radius of 5 miles from your place of residence (or other point of your choosing should you live in an awful area for birding) with the hope that a small, well-defined, and high-localized geography will motivate at least some birding within it. For example, this is what mine would look like. If I wanted, I could shift this circle several miles southwest so as to include less bay and more mountains while still keeping my residence within it, for example.
I know at least some of you are asking, "Why would I want to restrict my biding to such a small area?" Well, I see at least two very important reasons one might want to give 5MR birding a chance. The first of these is that carbon emissions will be reduced versus always driving to farther flung places. While birding emissions aren't likely to be significant in the face of ever-increasing world petroleum consumption, we birders should at least think about modifying our collective driving behavior to minimize our environmental impact. Second, data collected in the 5MR are particular valuable as they are highly localized and specific and as such will greatly aid in local conservation efforts. One of the problems with birding data is that a lot of them come from just a few areas, or 'Hot Spots'. If everyone spent at least some time each week in his/her 5MR, we'd get a more even distribution of data than if everyone races to the same places to chase the same reported birds. Who knows? Maybe you'll find the next great migrant trap right in your own 5MR!
Pied-billed Grebe - Podilymbus podiceps
Canon 500mm f/4 IS + 1.4x III on EOS 5D Mark IV
1/1600 at f/7.1, ISO 800
I know that the 5MR flies in the face of the driving and associated no-holds-barred listing that motivates much of our birding behavior, but I think it is a really interesting idea, particularly when cross-promoted with the various forms of green birding (walking, running, biking etc). As no point in the 5MR is more than 5 linear miles from home, it would be very easy to bird most or all of it by bike or foot. I personally have an ~25MR that I bird almost exclusively by bike (it runs from SF to Pigeon Point or so). What time I spend outside that radius is usually photography-motivated, but I sneak in a bit of petroleum-powered birding on those occasions. So, and as per usual, I'm not advocating that everyone immediately give up his or her car, but I do think the 5MR offers the perfect opportunity to reevaluate at least some percentage of our birding behaviors. I must admit that I fly to several international birding destinations each year, so what I save on the bike I probably more than give back on the plane. Such is the cost of being human. Just something for me and everyone else to think about in this installment.
Really quick - there is still space on the Colombia Photo-birding extravaganza that I am leading for Alvaro's Adventures Jun 22 - July 2 (full PDF itinerary linked just above my bio on that page). The general idea of this trip is to move slightly slower than on a normal birding trip so that we have time to collect shots in photographically productive areas - like around feeder arrays. We will not be sitting in a blind all day waiting for that one perfect shot, and we will cover plenty of habitats to run up your Colombian list! So, if you carry a camera while birding, I know you'll really enjoy this tour. We'll be visiting these exact spots (and many others!) where I collected these shots.
OK, on with the show! Since I've given you a lot to read in my recent Ecuador posts, I am just going to share a few recent photos and give you a few tips that might help you capture a few of your own.
***Again, click images for larger, sweeter views***
American Avocet - Recurvirostra americana
Canon 500mm f/4 IS on EOS 7D Mark II
1/3200 at f/5.6, ISO 400
Tip #1 - Get Low
This is the single most valuable tip that I can offer. Shooting down on shorebirds (from the standing position, for example) doesn't do much to imbue them with character. You really need to get down to their eye level to make them seem larger than life. That will also help with bokeh (blur) and subject isolation from both the foreground and background. Getting low will also allow much closer approach. Shorebirds are really trusting, provided that you're laying down on your stomach. I know many people can't easily get low or just don't want to lay in wet sand or mud, but that's what I had to do to collect most of the shots in this post.
American Avocet - Recurvirostra americana
Canon 500mm f/4 IS + 1.4x III on EOS 5D Mark IV
1/2000 at f/5.6, ISO 800
American Avocet - Recurvirostra americana
Canon 500mm f/4 IS + 1.4x III on EOS 5D Mark IV
1/3200 at f/5.6, ISO 500
Tip #2 - Study tide tables
If you're going to be shooting somewhere tidal, it is imperative that you know what the tides are doing. For example, I never shoot SF Bay on low tide as the birds are too far out on the flats to make effective images. Likewise, the highest tide can be tough as the flats are completely inundated and the bird move elsewhere to roost. I generally look for mid-tides in the early morning or later afternoon so that I have decent light for the desired water level. It also helps to know what your subject eats so that you can find the tide when that food source is exposed. Rocky shorebirds, for example, might hide on high tide and then appear as the tide drops and exposes the rocks that they prefer. So, know your tides! It's easy to find them online.
Marbled Godwit - Limosa fedoa
Canon 500mm f/4 IS + 1.4x III on EOS 5D Mark IV
1/3200 at f/5.6, ISO 640
Black Oystercatcher - Haematopus bachmani
Canon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 IS II on EOS 7D Mark II
1/2000 at f/6.3, ISO 640
Black Oystercatcher - Haematopus bachmani
Canon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 IS II on EOS 7D Mark II
1/2000 at f/5.6, ISO 640
Tip #3 - Use a very fast shutter for shorebird flight work While shorebirds on the ground are relatively straightforward, shorebirds in-flight present a big challenge, particularly the little guys. Shorebirds fly really fast and most beat their wings very rapidly, so a fast shutter is going to be required to properly stop the action and get a sharp image. 1/2000 is the absolute slowest I'll go for shorebird flight work, but I generally prefer 1/2500 or 1/3200. In late afternoon sunlight, my starting settings are always 1/3200 at f/5.6, ISO 400. I'll bring the ISO up as the sun drops, and, if I stay towards sunset, start dropping the shutter speed at that point to get correct exposure. Some people get scared off by higher ISOs but remember, you can fix noise - but not blur - in post-production. I generally skip shooting on days with less that perfect sunlight, but that's a luxury of living in California!
Black-bellied Plover - Pluvialis squatarola
Canon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 IS II on EOS 7D Mark II
1/3200 at f/5.6, ISO 400
Dunlin - Calidris alpina
Canon 400mm f/4 IS DO II + 1.4x III on EOS 5D Mark IV
1/3200 at f/5.6, ISO 400
Willet - Tringa semipalmata
Canon 400mm f/4 IS DO II + 1.4x III on EOS 5D Mark IV
1/2500 at f/5.6, ISO 640
Marbled Godwit - Limosa fedoa
Canon 500mm f/4 IS + 1.4x III on EOS 5D Mark IV
1/3200 at f/5.6, ISO 640
OK, that's it for now. And don't forget about Colombia!
I'm going to keep this short since I am prepping for an Ecuador trip that begins on Saturday! As I will be there through the end of the year, this will represent the last entry for 2017. Thanks for hanging in there with me through the third year of this blog. It's as much a personal birding journal as anything else, but hopefully some of you have found something interesting or entertaining to keep you coming back. Ecuador entries will materialize when I return, so please stay tuned for those. I should also, as I've done for the last two years, present my photographic highlights of the year, this being my most photographically productive ever. But for now, it's back to to the bicycle. I last wrote about bike-birding two months ago, on October 9, just after I had added Dusky Warbler for San Mateo County bike bird #180. Since then I've added another 26 species to reach 206 for my home county, the most notable additions since last time being Red-footed Booby (2nd county record) and LeConte's Sparrow (1st county record), both in Half Moon Bay. Though I alluded to it in that last bike-birding post, I should state here that I have actually created a bike-specific eBird account for myself. I have had a ton of fun with it, most specifically using eBird's "Explore Data" feature to see what species I still need to grow my San Mateo bike-birding list. I use the data generated from that feature to plan my rides each week.
Additions to my San Mateo County Bike
list since Dusky Warbler on Oct 9, 2017.
Red-Footed Booby, Half Moon Bay, CA
*This was taken from my kayak a few days
after I added the bird for my bike list.
As I have created a profile page for my bike-birding account, I was able to extract the following graphical data from it. This is presented in heat-map form where counties in which I have observed the most species are colored red; Those counties in which I have seen fewer receive correspondingly lighter colors, orange, for example.
It's pretty clear that I've focused on San Mateo, but I have ventured into neighboring counties a few times. For reference, it's 19 riding miles from my house to Lake Merced at the southern end of San Francisco County. Going the opposite direction, it's 17 riding miles to reach Palo Alto at the northeastern corner of Santa Clara County. What that means is that it's a non-trivial amount off riding (30-40 miles) just to reach and return from those neighboring counties. I plan to spend more time exploring San Francisco and Santa Clara Counties moving forward, particularly as the days lengthen and I can get more birding time for the same amount of riding. I have also discovered that I can legally ride over the Dumbarton Bridge to reach the extreme southwestern corner of Alameda County on the other side of the bay. That's ~23 miles each way, so that's 46 just to reach and return from Alameda. As I ride about 14 miles an hour, that's 3+ hours of cranking. So, I gotta make that ride count! What I hope this shows is just how much more challenging - and in my admittedly isolated, minority opinion - interesting local/county listing becomes when the bicycle is substituted for the car. I have basically given up local birding in the car as it is no longer satisfying. I really like the physical challenge that the bike presents, and I actually enjoy the increased logistics that come along with it. Today I went to Half Moon Bay (32 miles, 2000 feet of vertical climbing for the round trip) to try for Orchard Oriole and missed. I hardly cared though as I spent no money on gas, burned no fossil fuels, and got a great workout anyway.
Bike-birding field trip I led at Laguna Atascosa NWR as
part of the Rio Grande Birding Festival this November
I'm not saying that we should all perpetually abandon cars in favor of bikes. Hell, I drove 3.5 hours to Santa Barbara two weeks ago to tick a Garganey that may or may not count towards my ABA list, and I almost always drive when I'm hauling my photography gear to and from shooting locations. But I do think that we birders should rethink the relative weight we place on local/county lists as generated through petroleum-powered means, particularly as much of that local/county birding can be done by bike instead. I totally understand that the bike isn't for everyone, but it should be possible for the community to deploy it more than the very little that we do now. It's a low-cost, healthy, environmentally-friendly, and challenging alternative to driving. It's also a hellava lot more satisfying and immeasurably more interesting than just sitting behind the wheel. But that's me. I curious what others think.
Many folks have already heard of the tremendous pelagic successes of the most recent West Coast repositioning ('repo') cruise, this particular edition running from Los Angeles to Vancouver from Wednesday, November 29th to Saturday, December 2nd. To get right to the point, the birding was incredible, specifically along the Oregon Coast where we found record numbers of Laysan Albatrosses (40-50), Short-tailed Albatrosses (5), and Mottled Petrels (~200). Not to be forgotten were 8 Cook's Petrels, a nice bonus on top of our already strong haul. This post is meant as a complement to Post #65, a very lengthy recap of the spring Repo Cruise that I took in May of last year. As that post is filled with all sorts of helpful and advisory information, I will use this post to supplement that one.
Our Route
The general idea of a repositioning cruise is that the cruise company (Princess) needs to move ships around depending upon where they are needed each season. For example, our boat from last year's May trip was used for warm weather cruises all winter (Mexico, Hawaii) before being repositioned to Vancouver in spring for Alaskan cruises during the summer. The beauty of the repo cruise is that the boat makes no port stops, instead staying well offshore and following the continental shelf edge between the end points. With so much time in the deep water, birders have found these repo cruises a wonderful way to view pelagic birds, most specifically the Pterodroma petrels that have proven so difficult to find from more traditional, 8-, 10-, or 12-hour pelagic trips. As this video will show, the cruise ship is no longer a secret!
Me being a clown, as per usual
Hold on, hold on. If I went north (LA > VAN) last spring, wouldn't it make sense to go south (VAN > LA) this fall/winter, right? Yes, it would, but this was a special repo cruise, one that was repositioning the ship to Vancouver for painting, maintenance, and other upgrades. This is important as this late-Nov/early-Dec trip is unlikely to go every year. So, if you're looking into doing this exact trip next year, be advised that it might not run. There will most certainly be some form of southbound repo cruise in late fall (Sept/Oct), but, given that earlier season, that trip won't likely replicate the successes of this past week. This most recent repo cruise left LA on Wednesday, November 29th at 4pm. With the short days, we did little birding as it was dark by the time we left the harbor. At sunrise on the next day (Thursday), we found ourselves ~40-50 mils off Big Sur, and, in the course of the day, we made our way north along the shelf edge to reach central Sonoma County by nightfall (around 5:30pm). In that stretch, we had good numbers of Northern Fulmars, low numbers of Sooty Shearwaters, scattered alcids, a few Red Phalaropes, single numbers of Black-footed Albatrosses, and at least 2 very distant Laysan Albatrosses. On the whole it was a very slow day characterized by strong north winds and heavy seas. That night we traversed the remainder of the California Coast. The sun rose just after we crossed into Oregon on Friday morning, and we immediately had more birds of every sort, most notably Black-footed and Laysan Albatrosses. It wasn't long until a juvenile Short-tailed Albatross materialized, quickly buzzing the port side of the boat before quickly disappearing. I got on it very late, enough for a decent ID view but not enough for photos. After that the albatross floodgates opened. For the next few hours, Black-footeds and Laysans were in near constant view on the horizon. Midday we passed an active trawler that had loads albatrosses around it, including another 2 or 3 Short-taileds (all juveniles). Those gave much nicer views than the first (photos below).
We found passed this (and only this) fishing boat.
It was probably half a mile away.
So yeah, most of the birds were very distant.
All of the photos are terrible quality due to the distance of the birds from the boat. I have chosen to show the full frame and the cropped image so that you can see what you can expect with 560mm of focal length (400 + 1.4x). I expect those folks at the very front of the ship will have much better pics of this Short-tailed Albatross as it moved away from the boat by the time I got on it.
Short-tailed Albatross (juvenile) record shot - full frame, uncropped
Cropped from above. Note chocolate color and huge, pink bill
Laysan Albatross record shot - full frame, uncropped
Cropped from above
The albatrosses ensured that everyone on the ship was stoked, but we still hadn't yet seen a single petrel. Most everyone was hoping for Mottled Petrel, and it was with great excitement that the first of those was spotted and called-out mid-afternoon. I missed that individual as I was on the wrong side of the ship and was understandably despondent about it. Laying on my own scope, I quickly spotted another as redemption. At that point, petrels appeared everywhere, and we had Mottleds in near constant view until we crossed into Washington right as darkness fell. Many of them gave great views as they arced up and down just in front of the ship. As mentioned, there were also single numbers of Cook's Petrels mixed in.
Mottled Petrel (underside) record shot - full frame, uncropped
Cropped from above. Note stocky body, short wings,
black ulnar bars on underwing, gray belly.
Mottled Petrel (topside) record shot - full frame, uncropped
Cropped from above. Mostly gray with classic "M"
pattern traced across wings.
Cook's Petrel (underside) record shot - full frame, uncropped
Cropped from above. Note cleaner underwing and more nimble,
longer-winged form than Mottled.
OK, you get the idea; The birds were far away. But that's to be expected given the size of the ship and the fact that it doesn't slow down no matter what appears! Since the views are poor compared to a regular pelagic trip, the cruise ship won't at all replace those shorter outings. The cruise is really for those hardcore listers who want to tick tough species such as the Pterodroma petrels for their ABA lists. I had 32 Cook's, 18 Murphy's, and 2 Hawaiian in the spring and ~200 Mottled and 8 Cook's on this fall/winter leg. In comparison, I didn't see see a single petrel (besides fulmars) on the ~15 NorCal pelagics that I took this year. The cruise ship is the only way to go for these birds. There was actually a Red-legged Kittiwake called out on Friday, but only 1 or 2 people got onto it. I'm not sure if it made the official trip list or not. The list of marine mammals included Fur Seal, breaching Humpback Whales, Pacific White-sided Dolphin, Northern Right Whale Dolphin, Sperm Whale (I think), and a small pod (3-4) of Orcas not far from where we passed the fishing boat. I'm sure this mammal list is incomplete. The cruise concluded when we pulled into Vancouver mid-morning on Saturday, December 2nd. So, we ended up with 2 full days of sea birding, the first boring and the second exciting. As I covered the layout of the ship, food, and other assorted cruise considerations in Post #65, I'll briefly touch on a couple of other considerations that people might find interesting/helpful.
Inside the boat. I avoided this except for boarding.....
Seasickness was - as far as I could tell - a non-issue on the trip. Some people wore ear patches but the ship really doesn't move that much. We had some long-period swell but nothing more. Interestingly, some people might find taking motion sickness pills near bedtime a good way to aid sleep. The ship is big but does pitch slowly if there is sufficient swell/wind. Weather was quite chilly at times, particularly in the wind, but nothing that a decent parka wouldn't easily fend off. Interestingly, the weather on this fall trip was about equivalent to the last year's spring trip, a bit of a surprise given the time of year. The days were significantly shorter this time around, the light being usable from about 7am until 5pm (spring was more like 6am to 8pm).
Sunset over the North Pacific
With upwards of 70 birders on board this time around, it did feel crowded at times, particularly when everyone was crammed onto the bow during the albatross and petrel madness on Friday. I have no idea how crowds will trend moving forward, but positioning is significantly more important on the cruise ship that it is on a traditional pelagic where it is easy for everyone to move to any point on the boat. If the wind permits, the bow is the place to be. If not, the sun angle dictates that the port/left side is better in the morning and the starboard/right side better in the afternoon - assuming you're going north; The opposite would be true going south. Wind on the Pacific Coast is almost always from the north or northwest. Though it wasn't terribly rough on this run per se, the boat did move a bit slower than usual because of that long-period swell above referenced. This meant that we ported into Vancouver about 4 hours later than scheduled. I would highly suggest leaving a big buffer between the ship's scheduled arrival and your departing flight to allow for similarly unexpected/unplanned delays. Many people (myself included) actually stuck around Vancouver for the weekend, so that's a great option if you feel like doing some extra, terrestrial birding at cruise's conclusion. You've already made it that far, right? Winter birding around Boundary Bay is great. OK, that's it for now. If you like this sort of thing, you might want to 'follow' the blog so that you don't miss similar trip recaps moving forward. You can do that on the right hand side/column of the page as it appears in the WEB FORMAT on either your home computer or phone (sadly, you can't do it from the mobile device format on your phone). And since I made you put up with crappy photos for this whole entry, I'll leave you with a few decent shots from around Vancouver after the cruise. Enjoy!
***As always, click for higher resolution views***
Northern Pintail - Anus acuta
Canon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 IS II on EOS 7D2
1/1250 at f/5.6, ISO 400, laying facedown in duck crap.
Northern Pintail - Anus acuta
Canon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 IS II on EOS 7D2
1/2000 at f/5.6, ISO 400, laying facedown in duck crap.
Wood Duck - Aix sponsa
Canon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 IS II on EOS 5D Mark IV 1/2500 at f/5.6, ISO 800
Wood Duck - Aix sponsa
Canon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 IS II on EOS 7D Mark II 1/400 at f/8, ISO 1600
