SoCalBirding.com

The southern frontier of the ABA area is a great place to look for vagrants. Whether its Caribbean strays in Florida, or Mexican vagrants in Texas and Arizona, birders have long known to head south to the border. One of the last frontiers of border birding is the ocean off San Diego.

Due to a  treaty, the US territorial waters (and ABA area) extend offshore well south of San Diego. This area is well known to fishermen who flock to this area in the summer to fish tuna and yellowtail. The rich environment that brings game fish up from the south also provides excellent feeding ground for seabirds, including some of the most sought after in the ABA area.  

On the Aug 2010 Grande 48-hour we saw 7 Black-footed Albatrosses, a San Diego Brown Booby, Skuas, Tropicbirds, Long-tailed Jaegers, Sabines Gulls, Blue Whales, Pacific White-sided Dolphins and amazingly hard to find Baird's Beaked Whales.

Red-billed Tropicbirds have only been missed once a Grande 48 hour trip, and are at their peak numbers in August.  

Least Storm-Petrels are regular off SoCal in late summer and early fall.

Cook's Petrels  Cook's were seen well throughout 2009 and 2010.  This is THE year for Cook's Petrel. 

Hawaiian Petrel:   August is a peak time to look for Hawaiian Petrel known to be in these waters July - September.   One was seen from Searcher in these waters on 6 Sep 2006. 

CRAVERI'S MURRELETS:   The southern waters off the coast of San Diego are the best areas in the ABA area to look for Xantus's (both races) and Craveri's Murrelets.  The best time to find Craveri's is Aug - mid October.  The September 2009 Searcher trip recorded a Craveri's Murrelet on the north end of the Nine Mile Bank.  Four were well seen and photographed from Grande on Oct 4, 2008 (see photos by Steve Howell below).  Glimpses of two elusive birds were had by a few from Grande on Oct 3, 2009.    One was also seen from Grande on July 19, 2008, so they're here in August, just scarce.  We'll be lookin'. 

LEACH'S STORM-PETRELS:  Three subspecies of Leach's Storm-Petrels are expected including one summer-breeding Guadalupe subspecies that is a good candidate for eventual splitting. The current issue of North American Birds has an article about the status and identification of the subspecies of Leach's off Southern California.

Extreme vagrants such as Wedge-tailed Shearwater and Wedge-rumped Storm-Petrel are regular up to a bit south of mid-peninsula in Baja; August and September is a great time to look for these species. We are just beginning to explore this area, and other surprises will likely await.  A Bulwer's Petrel was seen September 4, 2003 off San Clemente Island and probably in the Santa Barbara Channel September 5, 2007.  

In addition to these "Southern Specialties" late August is an excellent time to see the regular assortment of fall migrant seabirds that have made California famous including Black, Leach's and Ashy Storm-Petrels, South Polar Skua, all 3 species of jaegers, Buller's, Pink-footed and Sooty Shearwaters and Black-footed Albatrosses.

This trip is our only summer double-overnight trip and is scheduled during weekdays because we're competing with sports fishermen during peak fishing season.  If we scheduled this trip on the weekend, the price would double!  Our purpose on this late-summer trip is to get spend a full 48-hours looking for rare vagrants - summer birds at the north end of their range and early southbound migrants. 

We will depart Point Loma Sportfishing on Grande on Monday morning and bird our way to and through the bird-rich Nine Mile Bank.  After spending some time exploring the bank we'll continue west to the Thirty Mile Bank and San Clemente basin where we enter the zone of the deep water tubenoses and alcids. 

Depending on weather, currents, and where the fishing life zone are, we'll spend all Tuesday  out past San Clemente Island, exploring some (but not all of the following features):  The Sixty Mile Bank, The Butterfly Bank, The Mushroom, The Dumping Grounds, The Cortes Bank.