Date: 8/11/25 4:39 am From: <lehman.paul...> via groups.io <lehman.paul...> Subject: [CALBIRDS] San Diego pelagics: 2 Guadalupe Murrelets, 3 Manx, Masked/Nazca Booby, 30+ Townsend's Storm-Petrels
Back-to-back pelagic trips out of San Diego on 9 August and 10 August both recorded some good rarities and some locally high counts. On 9 Aug, a cooperative first-cycle Masked/Nazca Booby was in a plumage that is difficult to perhaps impossible to ID to species, and booby experts so far disagree over its identification; a Manx Shearwater was well seen some 20 miles offshore, and a high count of 30+ Townsend's Storm-Petrels was centered over the 30-Mile Bank, where also a locally high count of 12 Black-footed Albatrosses. On 10 Aug, two recognizably different Guadalupe Murrelets were three miles apart on the 30-Mile Bank, two more Manx Shearwaters were in roosting flocks of Back-venteds some six miles offshore, good counts of Townsend's Storm-Petrels and Black-footed Albatrosses continued, and there were about a dozen Craveri's Murrelets. As always, the Townsend's Storm-Petrels provided for an identification challenge, with also good numbers of darker-rumped and a few white-rumped Leach's present as well.
Good photos of many of these birds will be available starting later today or tomorrow via eBird. Any comments on the ID of the immature booby are welcomed.
