With business
trips to southern CA and the San Francisco Bay area on consecutive weeks, I
decided to stay out in CA and take the weekend “off” instead of flying back and
forth both weeks. Not only would it save
my company some money, but it would also give me some birding time in the
region. For a few years I’ve been
thinking of adding some vacation time to a southern CA trip to head to the Las
Vegas area to work on my NV list, and this would be the ideal opportunity. I set up an eBird Needs Alert for NV and
there were indeed lots of possibilities for my NV list. Things were coming together.
But just as I
was starting to plan for NV I remembered seeing reports of Nazca Booby’s
somewhere in southern CA. With a bit of research
on the eBird Rarities Alerts I found daily sightings of up to 4 Booby’s in San
Diego Bay. And then I noticed multiple
sightings of Streak-backed Oriole in Tucson.
Both would be life birds for me.
Could I make a giant loop south to San Diego, east to Tucson, north to
Las Vegas, and then back toward Los Angeles to fly north to SFO? I wouldn’t be proud of my carbon footprint,
but it was all possible if I made it a 3-day weekend, though I wouldn’t have
much time in NV. And of course it would
help if my key targets (the Booby and Oriole) were cooperative. So I started planning for all 3 parts of my
trip.
Birders were principally
reporting the Nazca Booby’s while standing at 3 locations on the west side of
San Diego Bay, with sightings from land mostly being pretty far away. The prime location to look for the birds seemed
to be from Attu Avenue. Given the
distant views, some birders were renting boats to get closer looks at the
birds. The Booby’s were often reported
perched on buoys, especially buoy #34, rather than in flight. So with these details, and daily positive reports,
I was optimistic that I could see one or more birds quickly with an early
morning stop, and then head to Tucson for the Oriole.
Then again, the
Oriole was a different story. It was
coming to a feeder in a suburban yard, but not very reliably. In fact one birder posted that he finally saw
the bird on his 11th try! That post made
me dig a bit deeper and I was able to start to find negative eBird reports for
that hotspot. As my trip neared I saw no
positive reports for the 5 days before my birding weekend, and several negative
posts. Typically birders will post if
they see the target, but often won’t post if they miss it. So no positive reports at all was probably bad
news, especially for several days in a row.
Should I pass on the Oriole and “just” make it a San Diego and Las Vegas
trip? I waited until the last night of
work but again only saw negative posts.
So at that point I revised my itinerary to head out early morning to San
Diego, and then make my way to Las Vegas, skipping a try for the Oriole.
I arrived at
Attu Avenue on the west side of San Diego bay as it was just starting to get
light, and then made the short walk to the shore. The bay was full of waterfowl – diving ducks,
Brant, Aechmophorus grebes, and
more. But I was there for the Booby’s,
so I quickly focused my attention on finding the buoys that were their
preferred roosts. From what I could tell
from the eBird posts, the buoys would be northeast of my location, and likely
on the far side of the bay. Plus recent
photos of the birds’ favorite buoy 34 had the broadside of a large gray ship in
the background. So I started to scan in
that general direction and began to find buoys in the area, but it was still
pretty dark so I wasn’t seeing numbers on them.
Then as I continued to pan a bit farther to the north I came upon a ship
that looked like the one in the photos.
And sure enough there was a buoy in front of it. I was in the right general area.
As I started to
settle in and wait for sunrise I relooked at that buoy in front of the ship –
wasn’t there a large pale bird on the lower level of the buoy? I zoomed in to the fullest extent of my 50x
eyepiece, and sure enough it looked like I might have my target bird roosting
right there on the buoy. But it was
really far away (I later estimated 1.25 miles), and still pretty low light so I
couldn’t be sure - basically I was seeing little more than a white dot in an
all dark background. But a couple
minutes later the bird stretched its wings and I could see the diagnostic white
body and leading edge of the wings, with black wingtips and trailing
edges. It was indeed a Nazca Booby! Or maybe more accurately, either a Masked or
Nazca Booby.
I continued to
watch the buoy and could see the Booby move around a bit. And then a bit later it was finally light
enough for me to see the number on the buoy – it was #34 – its favorite. A bit later the Booby stretched again, and
then took off flying south down the far side of the bay low over the
water. As I continued to stay with the
bird a second Booby joined it. It must
have been perched on another buoy nearby.
I watched them both for the next several minutes, diving a couple times,
and generally making their way south.
Eventually both birds disappeared to the south at the closed end of the
bay. I decided to head down that way to
Grand Caribe Shoreline Park hoping to re-find them perched closer nearby, but I
could not relocate them. Perhaps they
headed out to the open ocean for their breakfast. Or perhaps they had turned around and headed
back north. I thought about heading back
to Attu Ave. to try to see if they had returned there, but given my plans for
NV, I decided to make an early exit and head off to the Las Vegas area.
But then again,
with success finding the Booby’s so quickly, should I head to Tucson for the
Oriole after all? I quickly checked all
the websites – there were no updates on NARBA, eBird, or the AZ listserve. So although I was disappointed to pass on
another possible life bird, it was indeed on to NV.
As I started
the drive from San Diego I started to reflect a bit on my Booby sighting. The key field mark to tell Nazca from Masked Booby
is the bill color – orange to red for Nazca and more yellowish for Masked. It was certainly not possible to see bill
color when I had the one bird perched on the buoy. And even though the 2 birds were a bit closer
when they flew by, they were still maybe three quarters of a mile away at their
closest point. So I still couldn’t see
bill color even then. Other birders
seemed to lament the same issue in their reports on eBird, which although the listed
ID was Nazca Booby, several included comments that indicated bill color
couldn’t be determined. At least there
were some photos of the birds seen at close distance with definitive IDs (when birders
were on a boat out in the bay). And
there were no Masked Booby’s reported in the bay. So although I couldn’t eliminate Masked
Booby, I guess I could go with the Nazca Booby ID as many other birders did at
least based on strongly circumstantial evidence.
Nazca Booby was
my Continental ABA bird #751 and Lower 48 #730.
And I can’t forget it was a new statebird for me in CA - #390.
And although I’ve
never been to Attu (in Alaska), I guess I can now say at least I’ve birded Attu
Avenue…
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