Date: 10/28/24 8:30 am From: Naresh Satyan via groups.io <naresh.satyan...> Subject: [LACoBirds] Wedge-tailed Shearwater in the San Pedro channel 10-27-24
Hi all,
I went on an extended whale watching trip yesterday with Newport Coastal Adventure out of Newport harbor. There have been large numbers of humpback whales in the San Pedro channel in the last few days, and we traveled back and forth along the base of the mid-channel dropoff, looking for (and at) marine mammals. It was mostly overcast with periods of clear skies and patches of very dense fog, with light winds and low swell.
The focus and highlights of the trip were certainly the 10+ humpback whales feeding in the area and exhibiting different types of surface behavior, and other mammals such as a fin whale and three species of dolphin. With all this bait in the area, bird life was remarkably thin. Over 8 hours, apart from the usual gulls, pelicans and cormorants, I only had a few Cassin's Auklets and jaegers, and the only tubenoses were 2 Black-vented Shearwaters, 12 Pink-footed Shearwaters, a distant Sooty-type shearwater, and a WEDGE-TAILED SHEARWATER. The Wedge-tailed Shearwater appeared with a Pink-footed Shearwater in a small group of feeding birds in the western part of the dropoff, and the group dispersed (or we moved on to other whales) after a short time. It would be interesting to see if this is determined to be the same bird reported by Joel Barrett in the Santa Barbara channel a couple of weeks ago.
We stopped at Two Harbors at Catalina Island for a quick 30-40 minute lunch stop. I walked quickly across the isthmus and back, where it looked very brown overall, and I saw one of the endemic Loggerhead Shrikes and a couple of Clay-colored Sparrows.
