Date: 10/13/26 9:00 am From: Peter Pyle via groups.io <ppyle...> Subject: [Mendobirds] Noyo Pelagics -October 17th
Greeting Mendo birders -
We still have room on on full-day pelagic trip and hope you'd consider joining us. Since I posted the message to the Bay Area list serves on Saturday (below) the weather forecast has indeed still held, with rather light NW winds inshore and a shear of moderate winds offshore. This can be ideal for both mammals inshore and birds along the shear. What's more, the winds are relatively calm on Friday so we won't have that choppy slop left over from the day before, as we have experienced on a couple of our recent trips (despite calmer winds that day). Tim says swell conditions look good, and if he say's this, you better believe it!
Yesterday and Sunday there were whale spouts dotting the horizon off the Mendocino Botanical Garden and Pomo Bluffs. Ocean temps are still an unseasonably cool or at least average 55 F at the Pt Arena buoy, currently, so this may keep things lively out there.
-------- Forwarded Message -------- Subject: Re: Noyo Pelagics -October 17th Date: Sat, 10 Oct 2026 07:28:56 -0700 From: Peter Pyle <ppyle...> To: North Bay Birds <northbaybirds...>, <SFBirds...>, East Bay Birds <ebb-sightings...> CC: Tim Bray <tbray...>, Chuck and Barbara Vaughn <cevaughn...>, Roger Adamson <radamson...>
Greetings Bay area birders -
We still have some room on our pelagic trip for this coming Saturday, October 17th. At this point light to moderate NW winds are predicted but this can change. These conditions would be great for birding and whale-watching if the prediction holds.
We continue to have strong upwelling which has kept our sea surface temperatures cool. Fisherman have been reporting an abundance of birds and marine mammals over Noyo Canyon, attracted by the marine productivity associated with upwelling. At the same time signs of El Niño have come in the form of 6-8 boobies so far off Mendo and some 400 Black Storm-Petrels on a half day trip we ran on September 27th. We also had some close and thrilling encounters with Blue Whales that day; see our report and photos at
We still have 1-2 scholarships available for high school and college students, sponsored by Mendocino Coast Audubon. If interested in one of these, contact Tim Bray (cc'd above). Also sponsored by MCAS is a camp site reserved at MacKerricher State Park for the night of the 16th-17th. If interested in taking advantage of this, contact Roger Adamson (cc'd above).
Also note that we have added a full-day trip for November 30th to see if we can find Mottled Petrels, a species that has become somewhat of a Holy Grail for pelagic bird enthusiasts off California. They pass through during a short period in late November and early December, a time of the year when only a lucky few one-day pelagic trips have been able to get out and find them. With our Pterodroma manna, we figure outer Noyo Canyon will be as good as any place to see them,
