[CINC] Condor Sat 12/11/2010 - The 1st Gray Whale ...

[Kevin Bailey]

has yet to be seen . . . but please don't stop reading

 

It was an awesome day on the water;  warm, little breeze,  little chop
toward AI and flat as a board on the back of AI, then some chop heading home


We cruised east to where the Minke and Humpbacks have been seen recently and
saw a zillion birds but no whales.

 

After heading toward previous sighting areas and not finding whales we
headed to AI to see the new stairs, arch and landing cove area.

 

We saw a monster-mega pod of Commons, maybe 2500+ not far from La Conchita
all swimming to the west on a quest to find food. 

 

There was some jumping, leaping and mating; didn't see any "pink footballs"
but some young ones. 

 

Anacapa was covered with hundreds of pelicans on the back side and every
rock and beach was covered with thousands of sea lions

 

We saw 2 groups of Offshore Bottlenose 50 + 5 and one group was mixed in
with about 50 Risso's

 

We saw almost every bird you could name - a group of Brandt's Cormorants
were so close and low to the bow we could have grabbed them

Eared grebe

Royal tern

Pelican - lots of juveniles too

Bufflehead

Surf scoter

Snowy Egret

Common Murre

DC Cormorants

Brandt's Cormorant

Red necked Phalarope

Xantus's Murrelet

Western and Heermann's Gulls

 

 

Kevin & Toni Bailey and Barbara LaCorte

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