[CINC] Condor Express August 11 and July 21

[Bernardo Alps]

Hi all.

Here is a report on the ACS charter last Saturday and also on the deep water birding trip three weeks ago.

Take care,

Bernardo

August 11, 2012

The ACS trip ended up being pretty close to a perfect whale watching excursion. The weather was nice all day (no morning fog) and the wind stayed under ten knots. We tallied some impressive numbers being out there twice as long as on a normal trip. Birds are still pretty scarce but we did find a few gems.

We left the dock a little after 8 a.m. and headed straight for the west end of SCI. On the way across we just ran into one pod of dolphins after the other. 200 Dc, 100 Dc, 100 Dc, 100 D sp., and then 650 Dd right before we hit a patch with a few blues and humpbacks. One blue and a group of two humpbacks and a single worked well together to alternate their time at the surface so that we always had something to look at. The depth finder was showing a solid layer of krill at 20 fathoms. After a little over an hour of this, just as we were beginning to head west a little, another pod of 2000 Dc came out way. The animals were obviously socializing and there was a lot of mating going on. The pod even changed directions; they arrived from the west and followed us westward. A little while later, Captain Mat went out of our way for a couple of miles to check out another very active pod, which turned out to be 450 Dd, our second pod of that species for the day. Between the middle of the gap and Carrington we hit the mother lode. There were spouts as far as the eye could see and again the blues and humpbacks took turns at the surface so that we never got tired of either species. we did have a nice friendly approach from a humpback and two of the blues were a cow/calf pair. Just before we left, two Dalls' porpoises approached to bow ride and another pod of 1200 Dc came through. We tallied 18 blues and seven humpbacks the Condor way; we only counted the ones that were close enough for ID pictures, not whales off in the distance. And we didn't count any of the dophin pods that we saw on the way back across the channel since those were like to be ones we had encountered on the way out.

Bird number were very low again. We had an Osprey in the harbor perched on the mast of the Double Dolphin as we left, giving all excellent views. Sooty and Pink-footed Shearwaters, Red-necked Phalaropes and Western Gulls were scattered throughout the channel without areas of clear concentration. We saw three Black and one Ashy Storm-petrel, with the ashy being within a few feet of the black giving us a great opportunity to compare the size. The best species of the day were six Sabine's Gulls about four miles off Carrington. These striking birds breed in the high Arctic and migrate past our area relatively far from shore; they are more often encountered outside of the islands than in the channel, although sometimes a few individuals  can be found along the coast or even inland. Two Cassin's and one Rhinoceros Auklets were the only alcids of the day. 

Santa Barbara Harbor, Santa Barbara, US-CA
Aug 11, 2012 7:00 AM - 8:10 AM
Protocol: Traveling
0.6 mile(s)
Comments: 

17 species

Western Grebe  2
Double-crested Cormorant  30
Brown Pelican  150
Snowy Egret  10
Black-crowned Night-Heron  5
Osprey  1
Long-billed Curlew  5
Marbled Godwit  2
Heermann's Gull  60
Western Gull  80
California Gull  2
Elegant Tern  40
Black Skimmer  4
Eurasian Collared-Dove  3
American Crow  10
Barn Swallow  12
Brewer's Blackbird  3

Pelagic CondEx Islands, Santa Barbara, US-CA
Aug 11, 2012 8:10 AM - 3:29 PM
Protocol: Traveling
75.0 mile(s)
Comments:     American Cetacean Society all-day whale watching trip aboard the Condor Express to the southern Santa Barbara Channel. Visited the area off the west end of Santa Cruz Island and off Carrington Point on Santa Rosa Island.

13 species (+1 other taxa)

Pink-footed Shearwater  15
Sooty Shearwater  35
Ashy Storm-Petrel  1
Black Storm-Petrel  3
storm-petrel sp.  1
Brandt's Cormorant  3
Brown Pelican  30
Red-necked Phalarope  45
Sabine's Gull  6
Heermann's Gull  30
Western Gull  120
California Gull  1
Cassin's Auklet  2
Rhinoceros Auklet  1



July 21, 2012

We had a pretty eventful trip on the Condor Express Saturday, July 21. It was scheduled for 13 hours but turned into a 15-hour adventure.

It was a deep water birding trip and we did find 24 species, including some good birds. Not very high numbers and no real rarities, which is what birders always hope for, but we did see some Southern California deep water specialties. On the marine mammal front is was more productive with ten species. It was a little frustrating because not much time was devoted to the mammals; we passed by dozens of blows without checking them out.

We left the dock just after 7 am and headed towards the west end of San Miguel Island. Before we got to mid-channel conditions became too rough and Captain Mat veered back towards the coast. Before we got to Point Conception we cut across the channel at a steeper angle and headed towards a point well west of SMI. From there we turned south, which was a somewhat comfortable ride, to the Rodriguez  Seamount and from there to the San Juan Seamount, from where we turned east for a while which was the smoothest ride of the day and then north to SCI/SRI gap. At the furthest point we were 94 miles from the dock.  

As has been the case recently, there were very low numbers of birds in the channel. Between the harbor and the west end of the channel we counted 145 Sooty Shearwaters and four Pink-footed Shearwaters. Hundreds if not thousands of shearwaters would not have been unexpected for this time of the year. Unexpected were five Black-vented Shearwaters. We usually don't expect this species until later in the fall; July arrivals of any significant numbers in our area probably are a sign of nesting failure on the breeding islands off Central Baja. We had two Bottlenose Dolphins in the harbor and several pods of Long-beaked Common Dolphins in the channel.

The next segment was 24 miles long from the entrance to the channel to the Rodriguez Seamount. We found Ashy and Black Storm-petrels on this leg, as well as seven Black-footed Albatrosses and a South Polar Skua. Just outside the channel we found about eight Northern Right Whale Dolphins. The highlight of the trip was a pod of six killer whales that we found 14 miles west of SMI. One male, one juvenile and four female types. Alisa Schulman Janiger could not find these orcas in any of the catalogs she checked, so they are probably animals that have not been identified before. That is always an extra thrill. We got great looks at them during one surfacing that was close enough for useable ID photos, but it would have been impossible to follow them on their northbound heading without being washed off the decks. We had single, young California Sea Lions throughout the trip and on this leg we caught brief glimpses of a couple of Northern Fur Seals.

As we continued south from the Rodriguez to the San Juan Seamount, the Black and Ashy Storm-petrels were replaced by Leach's Storm-petrels, of which we saw three different sub species. There was also one Brown Pelican, much further offshore than expected. We caught a brief glimpse of a Fin Whale on this leg, the closest look we got at this species all day, and we saw several distant breaches that could have been Humpback Whales. We also passed several tall blows.

East of the San Juan Seamount we had great looks at a Red-billed Tropicbird that circled the boat repeatedly as this species often does. We also got decent looks at a pair of Cuvier's Beaked Whales, and had a small pod of Short-beaked Common Dolphins in an area we almost always encounter this species.

The northbound leg towards the SCI/SRI gap was pretty rough with constant spray over the wheelhouse. We didn't add any new bird species and we passed many tall blows, likely from fin whales. About 20 miles south of the islands we stopped for Scripps' Murrelet  in an area with a mixed pod of Risso's and offshore Bottlenose Dolphins. 

As we tried to resume speed, Captain Mat was unable to get all engines into gear. After a lot of troubleshooting, Mat and Dave used their ingenuity to put the engines into gear mechanically down in the engine compartments, but that took almost an hour. We ended up crossing the gap at nightfall and didn't have any daylight left for the blues and humpbacks in the channel that would have bumped our count of marine mammal species to 12. We had to make arrangements for the Truth to leave its slip for our arrival and for a couple of  harbor patrol boats to tow and push the Condor Express to the dock since the shifters weren't working. The crew spent another couple of hours working on the problem trying to salvage the next day's sold out trip but it was in vain. Turns out that water had seeped into one of the outside control stations and shorted it out. It was impossible to reach any support personnel on the weekend so the boat wasn't back in business until Tuesday.