We got up frighteningly early to go down to Monterey fish dock to join an all-day pelagic trip. Monterey Bay contains a deep underwater canyon, which means cetaceans and seabirds typical of these very deep waters pass close inshore. A whole industry has sprung up around showing these to the public. Our trip was a specialist seabirding trip, so leaders were throwing bits of anchovy and popcorn overboard to attract a big gull flock, and hopefully other goodies. There were a few folks from the conference on the trip, including some of the leaders, mixed with some birders, including some Brits.
It was quite a good trip in the end, although a long day battling against the swell and movement of the boat. There were a few folks making their own contribution to the food going over the side for the gulls. I saw two new cetacean species – Grey Whale and beautiful Dall’s Porpoise along with Risso’s Dolphins, a lonely White-sided Dolphin and a Humpback Whale at the end. Of the seabirds, Short-tailed Shearwater, Pink-footed Shearwater and Thayer’s Gull were new for me, and there were also lots of Common Murres/Guillemots, Kittiwakes, Ancient Murrelets, Rhinocerous Auklets, a few Sooty Shearwaters and Black-footed Albatross. One of the albatrosses was ringed. Such is the power of modern digital photography, within minutes, Steve Howell got a photo, blew it up to zoom right in on the ring, and the details logged of the bird, probably ringed as a chick about 20 years ago on Tern Island in the mid-Pacific. A lot of these guys use digital SLR cameras with about 300 – 400mm lenses with image stabilisation. They then fire off about 10 shots in a rapid burst, and pick one or two of these, deleting the others.
I spoke a bit to Peter Pyle, who co-ordinates the at sea surveys for US Fish and Wildlife. He was sufficiently impressed with my talk that he’s considering changing their whole programme to adopt these standards. I think it was their group I felt had furthest to go to catch up with other groups. Maybe standardisation here is not going to be such a big effort.
It was quite a good trip in the end, although a long day battling against the swell and movement of the boat. There were a few folks making their own contribution to the food going over the side for the gulls. I saw two new cetacean species – Grey Whale and beautiful Dall’s Porpoise along with Risso’s Dolphins, a lonely White-sided Dolphin and a Humpback Whale at the end. Of the seabirds, Short-tailed Shearwater, Pink-footed Shearwater and Thayer’s Gull were new for me, and there were also lots of Common Murres/Guillemots, Kittiwakes, Ancient Murrelets, Rhinocerous Auklets, a few Sooty Shearwaters and Black-footed Albatross. One of the albatrosses was ringed. Such is the power of modern digital photography, within minutes, Steve Howell got a photo, blew it up to zoom right in on the ring, and the details logged of the bird, probably ringed as a chick about 20 years ago on Tern Island in the mid-Pacific. A lot of these guys use digital SLR cameras with about 300 – 400mm lenses with image stabilisation. They then fire off about 10 shots in a rapid burst, and pick one or two of these, deleting the others.
I spoke a bit to Peter Pyle, who co-ordinates the at sea surveys for US Fish and Wildlife. He was sufficiently impressed with my talk that he’s considering changing their whole programme to adopt these standards. I think it was their group I felt had furthest to go to catch up with other groups. Maybe standardisation here is not going to be such a big effort. Sandy Bartle and Peter Pyle
After getting off the boat, George and Linda wanted to do a bit of present shopping. I scanned around the harbour and managed to pick out two Harlequin Ducks we’d been looking for, without success, from the boat. They were a pair, and the adult male was a wee beauty, like a small child had been given a full palette of paints to colour in a drawing. A Townsend’s Warbler flew into a tree in the parking lot to seal off a really good day.
When we got back to Asilomar, there was another conference checking in from the American Nature Conservancy. I wonder if Malcolm Hodges is at the conference. Fell asleep within minutes of getting back to the room in spite of a beautiful sunset.
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