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Posted by Toe on 16:30:06 07/04/07
Today I ventured out with Rock Jetty, Trey, Mike and his girlfriend Becky with much reservation about the west wind, which while good for songbird migration in Spring, can be notorious for killing fishing and pelagic birding. We found only one juvenile Brown Booby at Fowey Rocks, and nothing on the edge just beyond the outer reef. Last year on July 3rd we had intense activity in only 180-300 feet of water due to the strong east winds. Today, I suspected we'd have to run out deeper to find pelagics.
Both Trey and I had one target year bird for the trip, Cory's Shearwater, so we were hoping to get this quickly. As luck would have it, after passing the 500' mark we found a cooperative Cory's. With our target bird in the bag, we casually headed out in search of anything else. We had crippling looks at an Audubon's Shearwater that flew as our wing man for a long while, at times coming almost close enough to touch. We later found flocks of Sooty Terns in about 1500' with Cory's, Greater, and Audubon's Shearwaters nearby. We had a short run on Storm-petrels in about 1200', with both Band-rumped and Wilson's coming to check out our chum slick. While Sooty Terns were fairly numerous, we saw only 2 Bridled.
We had to search out deeper than usual due to the light west breeze (15-18 miles offshore), but despite this the day was a lot of fun. I am anxiously awaiting Trey's photos.
The day's tally:
Brown Booby 1
Cory's Shearwater 18
Greater Shearwater 3
Audubon's Shearwater 2
Band-rumped Storm-petrel 2
Wilson's Storm-petrel 4
Sooty Tern ~100
Bridled Tern 2
Frigatebird 8 (not including the many at the marina)
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