Date: 8/30/26 12:56 pm From: Dave Compton via groups.io <davcompton60...> Subject: [sbcobirding] Black Storm-Petrels and Sabine's Gull from Campus Pt today
While visiting Goleta Beach this morning, I noticed a westward movement of Black-vented Shearwaters, and a Parasitic Jaeger, offshore. So, I decided it might be a good day to go to Campus Pt and see what was happening.
Bird movement wasn't spectacular, by any means, but over 2 hours and about 50 minutes, there were some obvious highlights. Wind was onshore, despite windy.com telling me winds were pretty much west northwest. Most of the time, the wind was more or less east southeast as you experienced it on the bluffs. Perhaps more interesting was that, in this mid to late morning timeframe, just about everything (shearwaters, cormorants, pelicans, gulls, terns, shorebirds) was moving west, or up the coast, as if it was spring migration. Fleeing the warm waters to the south? Highlights were:
BLACK STORM-PETREL: 2 milling about offshore for about two hours. Guy Tingos joined me for the last hour I was there, and we both got good looks at 1-2 birds at time, 200+ meters offshore, flying east, then flying west, getting lost behind the waves after 10-20 second looks, landing on the water sometimes.
SABINE'S GULL - subadult present for the first hour, mostly sitting on the water or a kelp paddy, occasionally lifting off, and making its way a little farther east each time, until I stopped seeing it.
BLACK-VENTED SHEARWATER - 183 for the entire period, with about 170 in the first hour and a half, moving west
PARASITIC/POMARINE JAEGER - Probably was another Parasitic, but it was distant and went by quickly, moving west.
JAEGER SP.? - Guy and I saw a bird that looked like a small jaeger, but in kind of poor light, and mostly moving away. It's not on my eBird list at all, but we both thought jaeger, but it was kind of small, rather gray looking, and with no obvious white flashes on the wing that we could see. We did get good looks at its flight style. We first saw it swoop down toward one of the storm-petrels, before resuming course and flying southwest. Strange things were happening, so it's easy to let your imagination get the best of you.
HEERMANN'S GULL - my list says I had 24, but it sure seemed like more. They were all flying west, in ones and twos.
A handful of loons, three Surf Scoters, and a variety of expected terns.
