Short-tailed Shearwater – New Lower 48 Species, Monterey, CA, November 2016

My work travels regularly take me to the San Francisco Bay Area, and on several recent trips I’ve squeezed in a bit of time to go birding.  On those trips my birding has been limited to brief stops nearby, typically to chase after a local rarity.  For instance on my July 2016 trip I was able to add Indigo Bunting to my CA state list – a bird that had been spotted just an hour’s drive away. 

But as my November 2016 trip neared quite a number of potential meetings fell through, and it turned out I had an entire day free.  Although I could have flown home a day earlier, incurring significant airline change fees, instead I decided to take the day off and bird somewhere in the Bay Area.  So I set up an eBird Needs Alert to see what possible new statebirds might be around.  Unfortunately nothing popped up locally.  Then I thought about maybe heading up to Point Reyes.  Although I hadn’t been there in many years, I fondly remembered birding the varied habitats at the National Seashore.  So maybe I could spend a day of casual birding there, doing an extended seawatch there as well.  Then there was a post of a Glaucous Gull seen on the peninsula, so there would be at least 1 possible statebird to chase after.  So I packed my scope and binocs and developed a plan to spend a day birding a short distance north at Point Reyes.

As my trip progressed and my vacation day approached, I started to notice numerous posts of several species I needed for my CA list from organized daily seawatches on the Monterey peninsula.  It was a longer drive than I had planned for, but the targets included one species that would be new for my Lower 48 list (Short-tailed Shearwater – seen once before in Alaska in 1987), and one potential Lifebird (Flesh-footed Shearwater).  Not to mention sightings of Manx Shearwater and Tufted Puffin “only” as potential CA statebirds.  Now it seemed that the potential targets justified the longer drive, so I changed my plans and decided to join the local counters for a day-long seawatch at Pt. Pinos in Monterey. 

I arrived at the point a bit before sunrise, and fondly remembered that I had birded here a couple times before – most recently in 1987.  It was sobering to think that my most “recent” trip here was nearly 30 years ago.  I snapped these 2 shots of the sunrise as I waited for the light to improve a bit.

A few minutes later I was joined by Skye Haas who was the counter for the seawatches.  Skye commented that the best migration flights have occurred with northwest winds.  Unfortunately that morning there was at best just a light breeze, and it was out of the northeast.  As a result the day started slowly, with just a few flocks of Pacific Loons passing overhead, along with the regular gulls, cormorants, and pelicans. 

I was especially focused on the more distant horizon to look for shearwaters, and soon started to pick up an occasional Black-vented Shearwater.  I had only seen this species once before on a seawatch near Los Angeles in 2008, so it was nice to see this species again.  We also began to see an occasional Fulmar pretty far out.  Most Pacific Fulmars are all dark birds which look a lot like Sooty Shearwaters, especially in the far distance.  By comparison, most Fulmars on the Atlantic are paler birds, making ID a lot easier.  Skye gave me some good tips for separating these 2 similar species here on the Pacific.  Occasional Red Phalaropes were nice too, but certainly to be expected on these seawatches. 

But all of this meant it was turning out to be a pretty slow day.  Several times Skye lamented how slow it was.  Just my luck – my only day available for the seawatch and the weather wasn’t cooperating.  That just meant I needed to look even harder for my target birds. 

It was now mid-morning and we still just had a few of the regular migrants passing by.  Then I noticed a larger dark shearwater flying south.  I got Skye on the bird which luckily wasn’t too far out so it gave us good views.  I saw some paleness in the wing linings, and since I thought Short-tails had all dark wing linings, I thought it was going to be a Sooty.  But Skye pointed out that Sooty’s have much paler wing linings, and this bird was actually a Short-tailed Shearwater.  After it passed by I went back to my Sibley guide and sure enough realized that the underwings of a Short-tailed are a bit paler than the body, though still a lot darker than a Sooty.  I guess if it had been farther out I wouldn’t have seen any paleness at all.  And soon thereafter a Sooty Shearwater passed by flashing its underwings which looked white by comparison.  A great study on these dark Pacific shearwaters – and many thanks to Skye for the ID tips.

During the slower times of the day I took a few breaks from the seawatch to take a couple photos of cooperative birds nearby.  These Brewer’s Blackbirds were occasionally joined by a male “Bi-colored” Blackbird.

This Western Gull was most cooperative.

And this was a nice collection of Brandt’s and Pelagic Cormorants on some nearby rocks.

Not to mention this nice scenery shot.

I stayed at Pt. Pinos until about 3 PM before calling it quits after more than 8 hours of seawatching.  Selected totals recorded during my stay included -

Pacific Loon - 1,620

Northern Fulmar - 14

Sooty Shearwater - 2

Short-tailed Shearwater - 2

Sooty/Short-tailed Shearwater - 1

Black-vented Shearwater - 276

Red Phalarope - 463

That was undoubtedly the most Pacific Loons and Red Phalaropes I’ve ever seen in one day, and only the second time I’ve ever seen Black-vented and Short-tailed Shearwaters.  And of course I was happy to have added Short-tailed Shearwater to my Lower 48 list (#727) and to my CA statelist (#384). 

But although those might seem like nice totals, it’s all relative.  Check out these totals from two days earlier, in just one hour of seawatching from this same spot –

Pacific Loon – 2,274

Northern Fulmar - 43

Sooty Shearwater - 17

Short-tailed Shearwater - 22

Sooty/Short-tailed Shearwater - 23

Black-vented Shearwater - 257

Red Phalarope - 32

Plus –

Black-footed Albatross - 1

Pink-footed Shearwater – 2

Shearwater sp. – 75

Tufted Puffin – 1

If only there had been a bit of northwest wind the day I was there…