Date: 12/3/25 8:54 am From: Jonathan Feenstra via groups.io <feenstra...> Subject: [LACoBirds] Santa Monica Bay birds 12/2/25
LA Birders:
I spent part of yesterday on a private boat doing some whale-watching/birding around the Santa Monica Bay.
There were two spectacular feeding frenzies of perhaps 500 each Black-vented Shearwaters and Brown Pelicans with lesser numbers of gulls (mostly Heermann's and California), a few Pink-footed Shearwaters, Bonaparte's Gulls, and Pomarine Jaegers. There were also about 10 humpback whales, a minke whale, and hundreds, if not thousands, of common dolphin. The first frenzy was at the mouth of Santa Monica Canyon at about 10AM and the second was at the mouth of Redondo Canyon at about 2PM. It's possible that many of the animals were the same, since it looked like they were moving south from Santa Monica Canyon as we were leaving. The main parts of both canyons were pretty dead.
There was a Manx Shearwater on the top of the 270 Bank with a flock of about 100 Black-vented Shearwaters and a couple of Pink-foots.
It was nice to see flocks of Black-vented Shearwaters again since they've basically been absent from the Santa Monica Bay for the past couple of years, though 1000 is still down from the 10,000 that we often find.
Absent were Northern Fulmars, which I had seen both on my last time out on the Bay as well as from Leo Carrillo back in October. A Common Murre was the only alcid I encountered.
I saw the Harbor Breeze whale watch boat with the feeding frenzy at the mouth of Redondo Canyon, so it looks like they're making the trip around the point from San Pedro, if anyone wants to try that route.
