Date: 8/8/25 11:50 am From: Nick Lethaby via groups.io <nlethaby...> Subject: [sbcobirding] Masked Booby and SBI Booby Pelagic summary
All,
The Island Packers pelagic trip out to the booby colony at Santa Barbara Island was pretty successful with a good variety and quantity of birds. The highlight was an adult Masked Booby at the colony, which conveniently perched quite low down on the rocks by the cormorants. There was one Blue-footed Booby present among all the Cocos (formerly Brown) Boobies, but a few folks missed it as it tended to perch out of view on top of Sutil Rock in between making some short flights.
The crossing between SBI and Santa Cruz Island via the Santa Cruz Basin was as usual productive for storm-petrels with multiple good looks at Ashy, Black and Leach's, including both white-rumped and dark-rumped birds, and brief looks at Least. The general feeling was that there were no Townsend's seen and at least a couple of the Leach's looked notably long-winged.
There were many hundreds of Sooty Shearwaters and dozens of Pink-footed. We had good looks at what was likely the same Buller's Shearwaters on both the way out and way back. Unsurprisingly with all the shearwaters around, we had a South Polar Skua that ended up harassing some Pink-foots.
A lone adult Sabine's Gull was seen and we had very good looks at a pair of Scripps's Murrelets, which have often gone north by this date. After several 'years of plenty', we were surprised to find only one pair of Craveri's Murrelets. It will be interesting to see what happens on the later trips with this species.
Thanks to the other leaders on the boat: Dave Pereksta, Dave Compton and Wes Fritz, plus 'honorary leader' Todd McGrath for finding all the birds.
Regards,
Nick Lethaby Goleta, CA <nlethaby...> +1 805 284 6200
