Date: 9/27/26 11:47 pm From: Grigory Heaton via groups.io <g.heaton...> Subject: [LACoBirds] Nazca Boobies outside LA harbor up to 4x + Catalina Ferry
Hi all,
I spent the day birding on Catalina, both in Avalon and Two Harbors (via the Cyclone speedboat). Land migrant numbers were pretty bad and I managed to miss every rarity in Avalon reported yesterday (and earlier in the morning) after taking a later boat to allow for pelagic birding on the ferry, with a marsh wren and white-winged dove in Two Harbors being the only remotely notable birds.
The ferry rides, though, were another story. On the return boat, I counted now up to *four* Nazca-type boobies in the vicinity of the buoy line extending out from Angel's Gate - the two presumably continuing adult/subadult Nazca birds on Buoys 1 (green) and 2 (red) seen at extreme distance, the continuing dark-headed immature Nazca/Masked flying and diving near these buoys (also seen extremely far away), and another subadult Nazca (?) on top of Buoy 3 (green) with fantastic views as the ferry went right by this last buoy.
I also had what I'm currently calling a Manx Shearwater in a large raft of Black-vented Shearwaters, about 3 miles south of Angel's Gate. Storm petrels are still unusually easy to find in the channel with the warm water temperatures, with one Ashy SP and lots of Black & Least SPs.
For seeing the buoys/boobies - Harbor Breeze Whale-watch out of San Pedro will stop at the buoys if you ask on the way out, but Catalina Ferries are pretty hit-and-miss in terms of getting close to any of them since they definitely won't go out of their way for wildlife, and I don't think their routes ever get near buoys 1 or 2.
