Posted by Toe on June 17, 2016 at 03:29:40
I had to take a day off this week, and with west winds for every other day except for Wed, this was the day to go out. I was hoping to add something to the June Challenge, and hopefully find something good. With Fea's Petrel on the previous trip, it would be hard to top that. The trip started off pretty good with a Mangrove Cuckoo in the channel on the way out, then a Masked Booby out on the reef, both new June Challenge birds for me. As I expected, there was no bird activity on the edge so we headed out to really deep water. Went as far as 2,500' of water. We had a pair of Pomarine Jaegers, one dark and one light morph, that circled the boat and landed giving great looks. We also chased a Cory's Shearwater for some time, only to have a second Cory's buzz the boat and join the first, before they both landed nearby. No rarities, but I added 3 birds to my June Challenge list and got good looks at the birds we did find. Surprisingly absent were the storm-petrels, despite two good chum slicks. This is the first June trip without any storm-petrels. The list: Cory's Shearwater - 2 Audubon's Shearwater - 18 Masked Booby - 1 Brown Booby - 4 Pomarine Jaeger - 2 Sooty Tern - 30 Bridled Tern - 20