California- Farallon Islands

After such a successful pelagic the day before I was calmer the following morning.

This trip departed from Sausalito so we got to ride underneath the Golden Gate Bridge.

It started foggy, but things cleared up once a breeze kicked in. It was much easier to appreciate colorful Tufted Puffins.

And see the Shearwaters.

As we made way to the Farallon Islands (Farallón in Spanish means “pilar” or “sea cliff”).

The Farallon Islands are a National Wildlife Refuge, not open to the public, but only to a few lucky researchers. These ridiculous islands have logged 377 bird species on eBird. We boated up to “sugar loaf” the island named for the sweet piles of bird poo on top.

There are mostly Brandt’s Cormorants, Common Murre, Pigeon Guillemots, Western Gulls, and the best bird could have been a long-staying Northern Gannet that lives at sugar loaf but the gannet wasn’t home this day. What the Farallons lacked in gannet they made up for with whale.

We saw probably 20 Humpback Whales at least.

Feeding with gulls and sea lions working together to trap anchovies.

It was one of the most incredible things I’ve seen. Video here. It was hard to pull away, but we had more birds to look at along the continental shelf and Pioneer Sea Canyon.

We saw Northern Fulmar.

Black-footed Albatross.

Cassin’s Auklets.

And the “rarest” bird of the trip, a Fork-tailed Storm Petrel.

Not a life bird, I’ve seen one on Oregon pelagics, but it’s been a while and it’s a good bird for California in the summer. It was the best looks I’ve gotten to date.

We turned around then, and when we got back to the bay it was a bright and sunny ride under the bridge.

A pretty nice way to end pelagic #2. That and no one on the ship got sick. I spent a total of 19 hours at sea in two days, saw two life birds, AND SURVIVED. Incredible.

Tweets and chirps,

Audrey