Date: 5/10/26 6:22 pm From: Dawn Hubbard via groups.io <britomart73...> Subject: Re: [OrangeCountyBirding] Oceanic (offshore) warbler fallout
That sounds absolutely terrible. I've had little desire to take a pelagic
trip due to seasickness, but seeing dead warblers would be awful and
depressing.
Dawn Hubbard
Garden Grove
On Fri, May 8, 2026 at 9:00 PM <tgmiko...> via groups.io <tgmiko=
<gmail.com...> wrote:
> Friday 5/8/2026 2055
>
> Hi
> I was fortunate to be on the pelagic organized by Dave Perekstra today,
> out of Dana Point. He can write about the seabirds and cetaceans.
> The reason that I am writing this email is to describe the warbler fallout
> that we had over open water. In this case, the word "fallout" is literally
> what happened. Warblers were flying towards the boat and they would
> repeatedly attempt to land, chicken out, veered away from the boat, attempt
> a second landing, chicken out again, and then finally give up and land on
> the roof of the boat. Many warblers did not make it and they dropped into
> the ocean. Randomly the boat would pass a dead migrant songbird floating in
> the water. Dave was able to reach down into the water and save some of the
> birds, including a Hammond's Flycatcher. When we got to shore, neither the
> Hammond's Flycatcher nor the Wilson's Warbler wanted to fly out of his hand
> and go to the trees to eat (remarkably, there was some big fat moths on the
> boat and they hand fed the Hammond's Flycatcher while he was inside a
> tupperware container, and he greedily wolfed it down). Other birds that
> rested on the boat for a while before leaving included several more
> Wilson's warblers, a Townsend's Warbler and Western Tanagers.
> One of the Western Tanagers caught a large moth on the boat and flew off
> with it.
>
> Tom Miko
> Claremont 91711
> 909.241.3300
>
>
>
