www.thefilemyrs.com > Birding > California 2003 > Trip Report

Northern California September 21-29, 2003 Bert Filemyr - Karl Lukens Bill Murphy - Martin Selzer With a pelagic cameo by Jane Henderson

Trip Report
By Martin Selzer

Sunday September 21, 2003 -- Travel Day. Bert was on the Hawk Watch morning shift. Karl met him there and Naomi dropped Bill off there after lunch. The three of them then came to Martin's house where Karl left his car and we all loaded into Bert's van to head to the airport. We made it there in plenty of time. Our flight left on time for Detroit. We made our transfer and again took off on time to San Francisco arriving a few minutes ahead of schedule. We picked up our luggage, rode the tram to the car rental desk and headed towards the Golden Gate Bridge. We arrived at the Holiday Inn Express in Mill Valley around 11 safe and sound.

Monday September 22, 2003 -- We had planned to meet for breakfast at 7 but of course we were all up early and ended up meeting closer to 6:45. We grabbed breakfast and some fruit for the road before heading to Point Reyes National Seashore (PRNS) at 7:15. A quick stop at a supermarket for sandwiches and drinks and we were off. We arrived at the lower end of PRNS around 8:15. Our plan was to head straight to the Lighthouse and worked our way back off the peninsula. We of course made a few stops along the way but kept more or less to the plan and arrived at the Lighthouse a few minutes before 9. We walked all the way down to the lighthouse, according to one of the park rangers it was 300 steps but we all agreed that this count did not include the ramp portions of the path. It was a beautiful overlook and we had lots of common murres, brown pelicans, Heermann's gulls, pelagic cormorants and one pigeon guillemot. We then walked back up the 300+ steps stopping along the way to enjoy the view and black phoebes along the way. At the Cypress trees near the roadway gate we found several Townsend's warblers and a junco. This part of the adventure took almost 90 minutes.

From the lighthouse, we headed to the Fish Docks/Chimney Rocks trailhead. Although we didn't walk out to Chimney Rocks, we did pick up a few birds here, most notably sharp-shinned hawk and western grebes. At the lighthouse we had run into two birders who reported that a red-throated pipit had been seen along this road on Sunday with a group of American pipits so we diligently searched for pipits, which was a challenge on the brown grass. Well, we found the pipit flock but unless the entire flock was red-throated pipits, we only found American pipits as we could not find a different bird in the flock. We then headed to Drake's Beach for a scenic lunch spot and to see what birds we could find there. In the trees around the visitor center and the Drake Memorial we had lots of activity. We picked up orange-crowned, yellow and yellow-rumped warblers, Hutton's vireo and more white-crowned and golden-crowned sparrows. We also found a simply striking chestnut-backed chickadee virtually at our feet. This was the second lifer for Karl who concluded that he was having a good day at that point. A quick walk to check the pond near the Drake Memorial, gave us pied-billed grebes, gadwall, green-winged teal and American coot. A quick lunch overlooking the Pacific was followed by a short drive back towards the main road and a 45-minute walk to the overlook of Horseshoe Pond from 12:30-1:15. There were lots of ducks on the pond including northern shoveler, cinnamon teal, northern pintail and American wigeon. We also spotted a good number of red-necked phalaropes and marbled godwits. From the distance we also picked up spotted sandpipers, sanderling, killdeer and black-bellied plover.

We then head out Pierce Point Road to Abbott's Lagoon and then Tomales Bay State Park (TBSP). We arrived at Abbott's lagoon close to 1:30 and took a rather long, hot 75-minute walk. We ran into two other birders who gave us the lowdown on what to expect at the lagoon and off we headed. We made it all the way to the near end of the lagoon and decided to head back rather than push on all the way to the far shoreline. Still our efforts were rewarded with an American White Pelican, merlin, and more wonderful looks at marbled godwits, eared grebe, osprey, a common yellowthroat and greater scaup on the pond. From the lagoon parking area, we headed back to TBSP, paid our entrance few and parked at Heart's Desire Beach at 2:45. From the parking area, we took the Indian Beach Nature trail loop. We took the "nature" trail fork in the trail and came across a small mixed flock that included western warbling vireo, chestnut-back chickadee, pygmy nuthatch, Townsend's warbler and brown creeper. We continued along the trail and it was rather quiet but we forged along to Indian Beach. At the beach, there was the mouth of a small creek flowing into the bay that held a group of marbled godwits and willets. We headed back up the hillside path and commented that we were all glad we hadn't carried scopes on this hike. Bert was at the head of the line when he spied a Stellar's jay. He then started to whistle like a pygmy owl and the jay seemed really ticked off. Well, the jay then flew across the path not far in front of us and we all realized that it wasn't Bert's whistling that pissed the jay off, rather it was a Spotted Owl or as I said "Holy, f****** s***, it's a Spotted Owl". To say that the owl made my day is an understatement. I had missed it twice in Arizona and in our requests for information; we had not been given much hope of finding one. We now weren't sure if the locals were protecting this rare bird or if they just didn't know. This trail had been a historic spot for spotted owl and we had been seeing a few spots of fresh whitewash put who knows. All we knew was good planning and dumb-luck paid off big!! We continued along the path and found a few bushtits before getting back to the car around 4. We then headed back to the motel but still managed to add white-tailed kites to our trip lists on the ride back. Dinner was at the Buckeye Roadhouse.

Tuesday September 23, 2003 -- We met for breakfast in the lobby at 6:30, checked out, loaded up the van and stopped at the Bell's Super Market for lunch. Today we were going to stop at the lower end of PRNS (Stinson Beach and Bolinas Lagoon). From our motel it was about 45 minutes to Stinson Beach and much to our chagrin, the park doesn't open until 9 so we kept moving up to Bolinas Lagoon. We stopped at the various pull-offs along the Shoreline Highway to check out the mudflats. As we had seen the day before it was low tide and there were lots of waders to be seen. Marbled godwits and long-billed curlews were ubiquitous as were brown pelicans. Also present in good numbers were mallards, American wigeon and a few other puddle ducks. One of the first shorebirds we came upon was a whimbrel close into the roadway. We found a few more but they were tremendously outnumbered by their larger cousins. Scanning the mudflats, we also found black-bellied plover, short-billed dowitchers and peeps to far away to really identify. Scattered about were a few great blue herons and many more great and snowy egrets. We also had a few black-crowned night-herons. At one of the pull-offs, Bill and I had a glimpse of a spotted towhee. After about an hour checking out these flats, we went to White House Pool. I had missed the turn into the parking lot the day before and rather than making a u-turn, we kept heading back to the motel. It made for a good second stop today.

A walk along the slough at White House Pool from 9-9:45 provided us with some wonderful looks at white-tailed kites, lots of sparrows, Vaux's swifts, a few cedar waxwings and more of the birds we were becoming familiar with during our first day at PRNS. We then decided to check out a different portion of PRNS and headed up the headlands to go to Limantour Beach and Muddy Hollow Trail. As we drove along the road out to the beach, Bert spied an Acorn woodpecker larder tree. A little further up the road, we had fly-by band-tailed pigeons but none of us got really good or satisfactory looks at them. We made it to the parking lot at Limantour Beach a little after 10 and headed out on the short trail to the beach. We walked out in a cold foggy breeze. Near the trail head there was a small pond that held long-billed dowitchers (later confirmed by call when they were flushed by a northern harrier), western sandpipers and a few herons and egrets. In the vegetation, we had a small group of spotted towhees. As the trail broke through the dunes, we could see that there was a small group of gulls on the beach and in amongst the Heermann's and Western gulls were our first California gulls of the trip. They were close enough and in good light to let us study their leg and bill color (almost a pale limey green). We then started to scan the surf-line and quickly found red-necked grebes, common murre, common and red-throated loons, a few pigeon guillemots and one winter plumage marbled murrelet. It was 11 when we made it back to the car and we headed back to the Muddy Hollow trailhead. When we got there, we could see that the trail was closed. At the trailhead, we ran into a group of banders from the Point Reyes Bird Observatory. They told us it had been a rather quiet morning and we discovered that one of them was from our neck of the woods. After exchanging small talk we moved on out as we were losing daylight. We stopped back at the acorn woodpecker tree and found a large family group of the woodpeckers. We also had a California towhee and finally all saw the flock of band-tailed pigeons. It was then time to leave PRNS and head to Clear Lake State Park. It took us a little over 2 hours to get to Lakeport where we stopped for gas before heading into the park.

It was close to 2:30 when we entered the park and paid our day-use fee. We stopped at the first campground and walked through it. It was closed to campers so we could ramble wherever we wanted. We quickly found a Nuttall's woodpecker, several Oak titmice, white-breasted nuthatches and more acorn woodpeckers. We also had a group of 12-15 "wild" turkeys. After a working much of the main campground areas, we drove onto the picnic area and its adjacent campground. We were hoping for a good view of the lake as it is reported to be a great spot for Western and Clark's grebes. While we could see the lake through breaks in the trees, we never could get really close to the grebes. In actuality, this proved to be the best vantage points we found and on a return trip, we able to find several Clark's grebes nearby. Almost as soon as we got out of the car, Bill found a bright-bellied empid but we lost sight of it before we could all get a fix on it. We did have more yellow warblers, western wood-pewee and black phoebe. As we walked around the campground Karl found a Bewick's wren. We walked the entire campground here and came back along the little slough that paralleled the road. Here we had an eclipse plumage wood duck and several green herons. We stumbled across a flock of bushtits that had a western tanager and black-throated gray warbler with them. We went in search of a good access point to the lake near the boat ramp but as none was to be found there, we returned to the picnic area and searched for the Clark's grebes. After doing this successfully, Bert started to make our motel arrangements for the night and we found out that Lakeport is a popular vacation spot even at this time of year. While Bert was sorting things out, Bill refound his bright yellow empid, we all got on it and it was a dusky flycatcher. From here we headed to Anderson Marsh Historic State Park and even though both books said if the park gate is closed (they were) you could park along the road and walk in. The problem with this plan was all the "Do Not Park Here" signs and the lack of a shoulder to park on. We chose discretion as the better part of valor and continued on to our motel in Williams.

As we drove along Route 20 Bert noticed a sign for the Cache Creek Management Area, so we made a u-turn and checked out the area. We were able to clean-up western bluebird and lesser goldfinch for those of us who had missed them and we all added Lincoln's sparrow. From here we continued to Williams. We had dinner at Granzella's before checking in to the Comfort Inn for the night.

Wednesday 24 September 2003 -- We started the day with a continental breakfast at the Comfort Inn in Williams, California at 6:30. Our main targets for the day were the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge (NMR) complex and finding yellow-billed magpies in the vast agricultural fields of the Central California Valley. We departed the motel a little before 7 and headed north on Route 5. We couldn't have been on the road for more than 10 minutes when we spotted a magpie on one of the light standards. Thanks to the state of California Highway system, there was a well-maintained shoulder and Bert was able to safely pull off onto it. After being advised not to get killed as he got out of the car, Karl had his lifer of the day before sunrise!! With that we continued north until the Sacramento NWR unit of the greater refuge complex. Here there was a 6-mile autoroute, a 2-mile marsh walk, plenty of birds and lots of black-tailed jackrabbits.

We started out on the autoroute and immediately had birds all around us. There were sparrows, swallows, pheasants and all kinds of waterfowl. In one of the first big willow trees we came to on the auto route, we say a large lump which on closer inspection turned out to be a great horned owl. As we were looking at the owl, a loggerhead shrike flew into view. All the while, skeins of greater white-fronted geese could be heard and seen overhead. The pools in the refuge held puddle ducks and we made periodic stops to check out the sparrows and warblers we saw in the willows and other vegetation. The warblers almost always were yellows with a few yellowthroats and the sparrow were almost always savannahs when they weren't white-crowns. We came to the first place where they allow you to get out of your car and the pools there had 100s of white-fronted geese, puddle duck and a few black-necked stilts. About this point in the day, and it was maybe 8:15; Karl announced, "I like this place". Whenever Karl is out birding and finds a place with birds he often makes this comment. We kept going around the refuge and we came across a small group of western sandpipers, a small group of least sandpipers and some red-necked phalaropes. I offered to get out and rock the van so everyone would feel as if they were on one of the upcoming pelagics but I got no takers. We kept making progress although stopping for every black phoebe and yellow warbler we saw in hopes that they were something new, prohibited us from racing around the route. As we came around a corner on the far side of the loop the van scared up not one but two American bitterns. Wow that was nice. While watching the bitterns we had a lone snow goose fly over us.

We made it back to the refuge headquarters around 9 and went inside to pick up any local information the staff had to offer. One of the staff members was very friendly and interested in what we had seen. When we asked her about barn owls, she commented "they've got loads of them on the refuge". She is also a rehabilitator and has had to take in 23 young barn owls this year alone. With the knowledge that they are not only common on the refuge but in the headquarters area, we set off on the Marsh trail. We quickly came upon lots of whitewash but no owl. We did continue to find yellow warblers and this time found a few yellow-rumps and an orange-crowned in the bunch. We also stumbled upon some bushtits, when Karl and I saw a large bird fly into the trees down the path. When asked how large, we both said, owl/hawk size. No more then moment later a barn owl flew out of the nearby willow and went further down the path. With that, we completed about half the Marsh trail, said good-bye to a wonderful place and headed back south on Route 5 to the Colusa NWR unit of the complex. It took about 30 minutes to get to Colusa from Sacramento NWR and we found it to be a slight contrast to all the birds we found at the northern unit. Just before we reached the turnoff to the refuge, we came across 100s of long-billed curlews in a freshly harvested field. Whatever was left behind was definitely to their liking. Colusa was under maintenance on some of its dikes and water-control systems so it was dry. Undaunted, we drove its 3 mile loop and were rewarded with a flock of 17 yellow-billed magpies, a lesser yellowlegs and not much else. We decided to head over to District 10 and Spenceville with a stop for lunch along the way. Lunch was at a Burger King in Marysville.

The rice fields in District 10 are wonderful spots for wintering waterfowl and the raptors that feed on them when the fields are flooded. Unfortunately, we were a bit early for this to have happened (which we knew) and the best we could do was hope for some flooded spots that might have held waders. We didn't have much luck with this so we headed to Spenceville. Here again we had lots of interesting habitat but not many birds and certainly nothing to compare with our morning's start. We then headed to the Yolo Farmlands in hopes of more flood fields, more yellow-billed magpies, and whatever else we could find.

It took some driving around looking at a lot of tomatoes, rice and other crops before we found some birds. This is kind of the drill in these fields and again, winter is the best time of the year but we were here so we gave it a shot. We did come across several Swainson's hawks, including one dark phase bird that landed in a field. Although Swainson's are threatened species in California, this area is one of the 2 or 3 last breeding locations in the state. We also came across several cattle egret and they too are local specialties. We had one or two more magpies here and there before we came across a flock of 12 in a tree. Karl proceeded to get a picture of these. We then filled up with gas in Davis before heading to the Yolo County Grasslands Regional Park in hopes of burrowing owls. As we pulled out of the gas station, four yellow-billed magpies flew into the trees outside a Taco Bell. Somehow that just didn't seem right! Anyway we went down to the park, looked for the Soaring Society sign as described in the Birding Northern California book and found two owls right where they were supposed to be! How about that? It was a 3 owl day and you know that any day birding in which you see three owls can't be too bad. We then headed to our motel in Livermore but not before Karl found a small group of Canada geese in a field. We came through Altamont Pass with its turbine wind farm. This was our second alternative form of energy generation we had seen this day as we had a solar energy farm in Yolo. Seeing all those windmills spinning in the wind as we came through the pass was a rather surreal ending to yet another outstanding day.

Thursday 25 September, 2003 -- Today we were going to do the Mines Road / Del Puerto Canyon Road route outside of Livermore before heading Moss Landing State Beach and our lodging for the next two nights at the Red Roof Inn in Watsonville. After catching the continental breakfast at the Ramada we took a somewhat round about route into Livermore to find lunch for the day. After picking up sandwiches and stuff we finally started birding Mines Road about 7:45. Just as the books say, we immediately started seeing more yellow-billed magpies. After only seeing a few on my previous trips when I looked for them along Carmel Valley Road it was evident that further north in the central valley they were rather easy to find. We then ducked into Del Valle Regional Park and took the Dog Trail path to the group camping area. There is an active bald eagle nest there and being the quintessential group of birders that we are, we eventually found the nest even if there were no eagles to be seen. Are efforts were not without some rewards as we had three Wilson's snipe to add to the list along with good looks at lesser goldfinches, Nuttall's woodpeckers and other birds that we were becoming most familiar.

We returned to Mines Road and almost immediately found a group of lark sparrows along a fencerow. We also had a beautiful pair of Nuttall's woodpeckers. This was an "unscheduled" stop as the birding guidebook, gives us recommended stopping points. Along this route, there are two driving factors as to where you can stop a place to pull of the road and understanding property owners. Because of this we stuck to the suggested stops. The first one we came to was very birdy with Hutton's vireo, Bewick's wren, more lark sparrows, Anna's hummingbirds, bushtits, lesser goldfinches and oak titmice. We continued along the road stopping where recommended but after these first two stops, most of these stops were not as productive although we had lots of western bluebirds and acorn woodpeckers everywhere. This doesn't mean we dipped out; rather we had birds here and there and had a few selective major successes. One of the first big finds for the morning was a California thrasher perched uncharacteristically high on a bare branch up on the hillside. Two other major successes involved woodpeckers. While watching yet another acorn woodpecker fly across the road, we had something different fly into the same tree. It was a red-naped sapsucker and with a little bit of effort, we all got on it before it was chased away. Another really good find was of a Lewis' woodpecker. Bert and I watched this very dark, crow-like bird flying along when we realized it was a Lewis' woodpecker. It landed on the top of a dead tree and we again all got at least a glimpse of it.

At the junction of Mines and Del Puerto Canyon roads there is a little café that is known for having Anna's hummingbirds coming its feeders and as a place to get a cold drink and a snack. Well there were at least 2 hummingbirds here and for some reason, the owner was not opening her doors for business this day. Del Puerto Canyon road started out a bit disappointing. Of course the lack of birds was directly attributed to a very recent and very large fire that went through the area. We stopped for lunch at one of the regional park areas that still had a bit of green in it. From here, our fortunes once again improved. We stopped at the pull off where the creek does a double "S" curve. This is supposed to be a good spot for rock and canyon wren, rufous-crowned sparrow and possible golden eagles and prairie falcons. We played a northern pygmy-owl tape and got an immediate response from 2 birds. One was a rufous-crowned sparrow, which I got on, and the other was a rock wren, which the other guys got on. Well, I missed the wren but they got on the sparrow. If this wasn't wonderful enough, we had three golden eagles soaring up the canyon (two adults and one juvenile bird). WOW!! We also had several more Anna's hummingbirds here. It took us a while to figure out that we had both the sparrow and wren in almost the same bush at the same time, which is why we had a tough time describing what we were seeing to each other. Once this had been figured, I had resigned myself to having missed the wren when we had one in the rock above the van as we returned to it. We also had three more rock wrens at the next "good area for them". As we came out of the end of the road we had Say's phoebe and several kestrels. All told, we had spent about six hours in this area and Karl deemed them to be "very good" spots not just his usual good spots.

From here we headed south and west to Moss Landing State Beach. This is one of my favorite places and I'm glad we stopped once again. We had the usual assortment of semipalmated and black-bellied plovers, western and least sandpipers, marbled godwits, and long-billed curlews in the tidal wetlands. Bill was able to find a ruddy turnstone before we headed out onto the beach to look for snowy plover. It took a bit but we eventually found several. We then walked out towards the entrance and I found an American avocet in amongst the godwits. We also realized that the "log" floating in the channel was a sea otter. We had a second otter closer to the marina and lots of California sea lions. I was a bit disappointed because there were no elegant terns here. But I am coming to realize that the large number of terns I saw on my first visit here was the exception rather than the rule. Although this fond memory is one of the reasons I like this area so much another is that you always have white-tailed kites here and I love these raptors.

From here we made a mandatory visit to Moon Glow Diary and found a few tricolored blackbirds here. We then went to Elkhorn Slough. It was too late in the day to enter the preserve proper so we skirted the backside and were able to find lots of black-necked stilts and a small group of red-necked phalaropes. It was then time to cal it a day, check into the motel, get dinner and food for our Monterey Bay pelagic trip on Friday.

Friday 26 September 2003 -- Today is our pelagic trip out of Monterey Harbor with Shearwater Journeys. Because we need to meet the boat at the dock at 7, we planed to meet for breakfast at 5:30 before heading to Monterey. As the Red Roof Inn in Watsonville is recommended by Debi Shearwater as a place to stay for this and the Santa Cruz trips we met several other participants at breakfast. We then headed to the dock which took us about 30 minutes so we were there in plenty of time. A bit after 7 Debi and her leaders showed up and we began to board the Check Mate. This has been her boat out of Monterey for quite a few years now. After listening to Debi's introductory and safety comments we finally leave the harbor more or less on schedule.

As we rounded the Coast Guard jetty, we found a few black turnstones on the rock along with Brandt's cormorants and lots and lots of California seal lions. We cruised into the bay along Cannery Row, towards the aquarium and saw sea otters in the kelp. We also found a pigeon guillemot that is likely to be the only one seen on this trip, as they don't get far off shore. We then started heading out into the bay when we came up on a fishing boat with 8-10 elegant terns following it. We hadn't been out more than 20 minutes and Karl gets his first lifer of the day. Soon after seeing the terns, we came up to the first rhinoceros auklet of the trip. Because it is early and because everyone needed a good look at one of these auklets, we circle it to make sure everyone gets it and gets it well. We continued to slowly head out into the bay looking for signs of sea life either birds or mammals because where you find one, you typically find the other.

Shortly, we had two blue whales spouting and while we never got very close, you could get an idea of the great size of these creatures. As we cruised along, we came upon common murre and rhino auklets here and there. We then started to see sooty shearwaters around the boat. They weren't in any great numbers but they were readily evident and got us primed for other things to come. A few pink-footed shearwaters started to join in with the sooty shearwaters. At this point Karl and I were sitting at the bow and calling out birds to the people there, as Debi and her leaders were aft and to the sides of the boat. We scared up two red-necked phalaropes before we started to notice a slow down in the activity. We then headed aft to stretch our legs for a while when three Orcas were seen. We observed this threesome that included a large male (large straight edged triangular dorsal fin) and female (small, curved dorsal fin) and a younger male (much smaller dorsal fin) for 20 minutes before we set off to the north side of the bay in hopes of finding the storm-petrel flock. During all of this we had a few Pacific white-sided dolphins. These dolphins can be told by their sickle shaped two-tone dorsal fin and two-toned sides. We were to have lots of these marine mammals with us all day. We also had come upon a northern fur seal thermo-regulating with its fins and tail in the air. It had really quieted down after a good first 2+ hours out on the water so we headed towards the north side of the bay.

Once we made it to the other side of the bay we again started to see many sooty, and quite a few pink-footed and Buller's Shearwaters. We also had small groups of rhino auklets and our first Cassin's auklets. We then started to zigzag in hopes of finding the storm-petrel flock that often builds up in the fall in the north side of the bay. We had a few distant ashy storm-petrels but it still was very quiet. Just after noon when I had just said to Karl that this was the quietest of the 6 trips I had ever done out of Monterey, things started to pick up. We had lots of Pacific white-sided dolphins near the boat and Risso's dolphins further away. As we tried to get closer to the Risso's dolphins we came up to a flock of about 30 phalaropes. But since all the leaders were concentrating on the dolphins, we sailed right through them. Fortunately those of us at the bow got the leaders attention to look at two alcids near the boat. One was a rhino auklet and the other was a basic plumage, adult tufted puffin. For the brief time these two were side by side you could see the difference in head shape and bill shape and color. The rhino took off but puffin stayed near the boat and we maneuvered so everyone got great looks at it. As we were all working on puffin, the leader chumming aft screamed out "albatross" and a black-footed albatross was seen flying into, through and away from the wake we were leaving. About this point, we started to find a few more shearwaters and in amongst them and the gulls was a rather ragged looking northern fulmar. We then started to pick up more and more shearwaters, especially sooties. We were still looking for storm-petrels and for rare shearwaters in the flocks that now were numbering 25+ and which were very abundant.

We then came up to a pair of seal lions feeding in a bubbling, ball of krill. It was hard to tell if they were eating the krill or fish feeding on the krill or both. Krill is the tiny crustacean that is the base of the food chain in the bay and much of the world's oceans. Everything from the tiny Cassin's auklet to blue whales feed on this inch long organism. We picked up a net full so everyone could see and taste it if they were brave enough. Although I am a sushi fan, I declined to sample it. Seeing these balls of krill near the surface are unusual but we were seeing them all over in this area and the fish finder said there was a column of krill nine-stories deep. We had seen several more blue whales by this point when we had a pair of humpbacked whales blow not to far from our boat. We eventually watched this pair swim along side and near the boat for a good while and although this was a birding trip, no one seemed to mind watching these mammals. We then finally started back in but took the occasional detour to check out various shearwater flocks on the ocean. We finally got back into harbor at 4 more than an hour later than scheduled. This was because we had gone very far north (past Santa Cruz to Davenport) in search of the storm-petrels and all the time we had spent looking at mammals. No one seemed to mind.

From here we went down to Point Pinos to look for rocky shorebirds. We were able to find two black oystercatchers thanks to Bert's great spotting, a few black turnstones and a whimbrel in the rocks. Crespi Pond had mallards, a coot or two and an eared grebe. We then went back to the motel to clean up before meeting Jane and Bob for dinner. They were dog/house sitting again and invited us to join them for dinner so that we could see the house and meet the dog. We had a very nice dinner with Jane, Bob, Cliff and Dixie, and Chibo. An alternative version of this meal was suggested at the dinner table but we want to maintain a PG-13 rating to this tale.

Saturday 27 September 2003 -- Today was our Shearwater Pelagic trip out of Santa Cruz. Jane Henderson had planned to join us and while we were waiting for the captain to show up, I thought I saw John Harding. Of course we had just commented how another trip participant looked like another DVOC member so I was promptly and thoroughly derided for this sighting. Of course when John walked up with his wife and said hello to us I was vindicated albeit begrudgingly. Today was the same routine as the day before with us boarding the boat at 7 and getting our pre-trip lecture from Debi. Today's first target was to get marbled murrelet that is a specialty of trips out of Santa Cruz, as they don't get much further south. We gave it the old college try as they say but we dipped out on the murrelet. Good thing we had found one at Pt. Reyes on the first day of the trip.

We did have a pigeon guillemot and lots and lots of common murre. We then headed out into the bay in search of shearwater and storm-petrel flocks. While we did find shearwaters, we did not find any storm-petrels and that was a disappointment to all of us. We have good numbers of sooty and pink-footed shearwaters along with a few Buller's. We also had a few pairs of blue whales feeding around us on and off all day. Today we had a few new, non-bird sightings today with several Mola Mola (ocean sunfish) and Dall's and harbor porpoises. We were traveling through the shearwaters and had a good pomarine jaeger that cleaned up yesterday's miss for me. We had just about reached the noontime lull when Jennifer starts screaming "flesh-footed shearwater, flesh-footed shearwater in the wake". Well, I don't know where all those people came from but all of a sudden everyone was on the back of the boat looking at this rare shearwater. It definitely has a dark, melted chocolate even color top and bottom, a light bill and a stiffer wing flight. Debi described it as a "1 in 10" bird meaning you are likely to see it one in 10 trips at this time of year. It was a lifer for all four of us. A few minutes later we had a black-footed albatross fly into and tease us that it was going to fly up the wake but it didn't. A little bit later, we had another black-footed albatross sighting and this bird had much more white on its body and head so while we were debating whether this was a second bird or not, the bird set down in the ocean and we circled around to see it. As we were getting an up close and personal look at this 8-9 year old bird (told by the extensive white in the vent area) a call of fulmar came from the back of the boat. I took a last look at the albatross and headed off the bow to see the fulmar. This was a mottled bird like the one from the day before.

We left these two birds and again started to work the shearwater flocks when Jennifer (this time at the bow) starts screaming "skua, skua". She had spotted a south polar skua coming head on to the boat and this guy just kept streaming by us on the left side of the boat. This was one of the few times I was on the correct side of the boat to see everything that was happening. Somewhere when all of this was happening we had a nice showing by two humpbacked whales including a double "flukagge" event. We were only 12-15 miles off shore during all of this and for people used to New Jersey pelagics, this was a great change. We had another south polar skua, a different bird as evident by its missing primaries and this guy sat on the water and let us get right next to it. If all this wasn't enough we had 1 or 2 more albatross sightings and a second flesh-footed shearwater sighting. The ride in was a bit rough as we had to head into wind on our returned to port. Still no one appeared to have gotten sick.

We then headed along the rocky shoreline of Santa Cruz to look for surfbirds in some of the spots that Jane told us about. Our first stop was a bust but we did better at our next two stops. At the first one, we had a lone wandering tattler on a beach and at our second one we found the surfbirds. Bert had just started to say if we didn't find them at this stretch of shoreline we'd have to be moving on. At the same time as he was telling me this, I was saying I think I got'em. There must have been 6-8 surfbirds. With our rocky shorebird list completed we headed to Bodega Bay for our last and deepest water pelagic. The drive wasn't too bad especially since we split the driving and we arrived at the Bodega Harbor Inn about 8:30 after having stopped along the way for dinner, gas and food.

Sunday 28 September 2003 -- Today was our Shearwater pelagic out of Bodega Bay. We were scheduled to meet at the dock at 6 for roll call. As we checked in and boarded, Debi was shouting instructions for us to "Put on your rain gear. You were told to bring head to toe rain gear and you might as well put it on before you get wet". The forecast was for 20+ knot winds with gusts close to 30. She also started to warn everyone that it was time to take your Dramamine!! Everyone boarded, stowed their gear and listened as Debi went through her pre-trip instructions. We left the dock a bit before 7 and started getting birds fairly quickly with common murre, Cassin's and rhinoceros auklets and pink-footed shearwaters. We then had a flesh-footed shearwater that made us two for three this trip. This one stayed with us longer than the ones did the day before. We then started to get sooty shearwaters and Buller's making it another 4 shearwater day! We also had one or two fulmars, a parasitic, long-tailed and several pomarine jaegers and a south polar skua. The skua put down on the ocean and we turned around to get a look at it or so we thought. We slowed a bit to look for the skua and never apparently turned back to sea. It was a little more than 90 minutes since we left the dock and we suddenly noticed that we had land in view and we were supposed to be heading 30 miles out to the Bodega Canyon and the Cordell Banks. Slowly we all realized that we were heading back. Debi slowly made the rounds telling everyone that the captain decided to head back to the dock. So after 2+ hours, we were back at the dock. We had made it 12 miles out, had seen all those birds as well as 2 humpback whales and one minke whale. We waited in the parking lot for Debi who apologized for the turn of events and began writing us full refund checks. Apparently the captain had decided that the forecast was not worth going out any further.

We quickly came up with an alternative plan and headed back to Point Reyes to look for the reported red-throated pipits at Abbott's Lagoon. We got to the parking lot at the lagoon trailhead around 11:30, had lunch and set-off in search of the pipits. Apparently we had made it to the north end of the lagoon the day before but today we needed to walk all the way around the second half of the lagoon to find the area where the pipits had been seen earlier in the week. So off we went. We met lots of birders as we made our way and all the reports were on no pipits, but of horned larks and Pacific golden plover. We made it to the pipit spot and also had no luck with the pipits although we did find a small flock of horned larks and one Pacific golden plover. As we retraced our steps we had a peregrine falcon feeding on the mudflats. Obviously it had captured one of the many shorebirds that were feeding in the lagoon. There were the usual suspects and we still couldn't get over the number of marbled godwits we continued to find everywhere. On the way back to the parking lot, we ran into a group of birders who told us of a green-tailed towhee at the Nunes Ranch (Historic Ranch A). So that was our next stop. When we got to the ranch we followed a local field trip into the towhee spot that was in a brush pile at the backside of the cypress trees. Throughout Point Reyes, these groves of Cypress are migrant/vagrant magnets. Before we got on the towhee, we had a pacific-slope flycatcher and a hermit thrush. The towhee then popped up into the open in a sunny spot. It was a beautiful adult bird, in perfect sunlight. It was a gorgeous bird and easily the best look at a green-tailed towhee I have ever had. With all the great birds we saw this instantly became one of my trip favorites. Soon after the towhee popped up we had a fox sparrow in this area and a few warblers including a Wilson's warbler. We also had a purple finch. The trip list was growing once again.

From here we decided to go back towards Chimney Rocks trailhead as we had pipits there earlier in the week and there had been a red-throated pipit report from there too. We had just pulled into the parking area and were about to go on the trail when we saw a pipit flock land on the hillside just from up the road. We hopped back in the van and tried to get on the flock. We did find them but the lighting on them was horrible and every time we tried to get them in good light, they took off and finally went up and over the hillside. So it was back to the parking area and onto the trail. After only 100 yards or so you come up to a grove of Cypress trees that are down a slope so the birds are at eye level. We ran into some people who had been on our first two pelagic trips who told us that there were warblers in these trees and they were correct. With a pair of birders we had been running into since we arrived at the Point, we started to get on the birds in this grove. This included Tennessee, hermit, black-throated-gray, and Townsend's warblers. There was also a black phoebe, western wood-pewee and another Pacific-sloped flycatcher. On the backside of this stand of trees, I got on a black-headed grosbeak. It stayed on the far side of trees and in the shadows but eventually we all got on it. This grove is supposed to have a nesting pair of great horned owls and there were lots of signs of the owls in this grove and at some point during all of this excitement, a very large owl came out in the sun. We hoped it hadn't been there all the time because it was right in the open and would have been embarrassing to have missed all this time. We then decided it was time to call it a day and a trip and headed back to our hotel in Bodega Bay. Because the pelagic had been cancelled, the motel owner was willing to let us cancel our reservation without any penalty but since we were going to bird in the area and needed a place to stay we figured what the heck.

Thus ended a most interesting day. We had hoped to have a wonderful deepwater pelagic to supplement our two earlier trips. Even though Debi stated that trips out of Bodega get weathered out not quite 50% of the time, going out for two hours and then having the plugged pulled was a rather unique experience. It was all the more interesting considering all the birds we had seen. On the one hand it was very disappointing and we felt short-changed (even though "stuff happens" and we did get our money back). On the other hand, those 2+ hours on the water produced some great birds. The return trip to Point Reyes was an added bonus since we really hadn't experienced the wonder of the Cypress groves on our earlier visit. We all agreed that Point Reyes was a wonderful birding location with its multitude of habitats and birding opportunities.

Monday 29 September, 2003 - An uneventful travel day. We drove from Bodega Bay to San Francisco Airport where we dropped the rental van off. We were on a 12:30 pm flight to Minneapolis. After a flight change we landed in Philadelphia at 10:30 pm. By 11:45 pm Martin and Bill had been dropped off, Bert was headed to Rockledge and Karl to Cape May.