Date: 5/4/25 11:29 am From: <lehman.paul...> via groups.io <lehman.paul...> Subject: [CALBIRDS] this year's repositioning cruises
Another spring with multiple northbound repositioning cruises plying the waters near the shelf edge off California (and Oregon and s. Washington) the past 10 days or so. Several sailings from San Diego aboard Holland America and one or two from Los Angeles (San Pedro) aboard Princess. As is typical, all or almost all of the trips are seeing Hawaiian, Murphy's, and Cook's Petrels, and Laysan Albatrosses. From one to a few Hawaiians per trip. Small to moderate numbers of Murphy's this year, with, as usual, the larger numbers farther to the north. And moderate numbers of Cook's Petrels, mostly or entirely in the more southern waters. Laysans have been in larger than normal numbers on most of the trips. A couple Red-billed Tropicbirds in southern waters. And one immature Short-tailed Albatross off San Mateo County. Haven't heard about too much else of note this year. I have heard that numbers of many of the alcids and jaegers seem well down this year. These trips are a comfortable way to see these species all in one trip (only occasionally is one the pterodromas missed, and that's usually when the conditions are too calm (!!) or if a bunch of time is lost due to thick fog (fairly rare, but it does happen on a few trips). Views of these birds range from very good to mediocre, as you might imagine--some requiring scopes while others are close enough to have relatively nice views even with just binoculars (seems to vary from trip to trip).
I'd also like to add that, from an eBird reviewer's perspective, many of us reviewers semi-dread the aftermath of these trips!! Lots and lots of eBird lists submitted. Only a small minority well put together, with locations clearly spelled out and adequate documentation for needed species. Lots of lists submitted with only one or neither of these. Plenty of lists with one-hour pelagic protocols used, but cruise ships may cover almost 25 miles in one hour, so that's a lot of ground where every bird on that list has the same coordinates from only the very beginning of those 20+ miles (so some birds sometimes get plotted in the wrong county!). Thus, it would be VERY helpful if birders included more exact lat-long info for the more special birds seen. (Gotten either from a GPS device, smartphone, or from many of today's cameras.) And then there's also the issue that a large percent of the birders aboard these trips have little West Coast pelagic experience, and even less experience birding from a cruise ship, plus a fair percent of them are, shall we say, very very eager (some a bit too eager) to see these species and other possible rarities. So there are always some questionable reports made. What really everyone needs to do is spend the first number of hours of each trip "equilibrating" their brain and their skills and in recognizing what the various species look like when viewed from a cruise ship, and THEN more confidently start picking them apart and finding the rarer ones. As a result, there may be a higher percent of incorrect IDs made early in these trips than later on. I've been on lots of these trips and have seen this process play out repeatedly first-hand. Of course the same thing can be said about reports from regular pelagic trips made from smaller boats.
