Date: 3/2/26 1:28 pm From: Peter Pyle via groups.io <ppyle...> Subject: [Mendobirds] Noyo Pelagics Trip report - March 1st
Greetings Mendobirders -
We kicked off our 2026 Noyo Pelagics year in fine fashion yesterday,
March 1st. Around 15 participants joined Richard and Corinne on the
Kraken and Anchor Charters <https://anchorcharterboats.com/> for a
half-day trip to look for whales and get over Noyo Canyon. We thank
Richard and Corinne for making this trip a go, despite a lighter roster
than usual. Winds were light from the south for the entire trip, skies
were mostly cloudy to mostly clear, and swell was low, all adding up to
a great day on the water.
Right out of the harbor we spotted Gray Whale blows. This is a time when
all but breeding females and pups begin to head north, although some of
the whales were also headed south. By the Fort Bragg Gray Whale Festival
later this month they all should be heading north; check out the Noyo
Center for Marine Science (NCMS) webite/events page
<https://www.noyocenter.org/whale-festival-2026> for lectures, whale
watching opportunities, educational tours, and other events surrounding
the festivities. Several NCMS folks and whale enthusiasts were aboard
and were busy snapping photos of the Gray Whales to contribute to Happy
Whale <https://happywhale.com/>'s known-individual catalogue, enabling
the study of individual movement patterns.
We then headed up to the canyon and within a few minutes had our first
Black-footed Albatrosses, Black-legged Kittiwakes, and shearwaters. We
wound up with 30-40 Black-foots but could not come up with any of the
semi-expected Laysan or the semi-unexpected Short-tailed Albatross. We
had 6-10 Laysans and three Short-taileds in April and May last year, and
we'll be scanning the horizons again this year on our four scheduled
upcoming trips <https://noyopelagics.com/> in these months. Kittiwakes
were with us all day, 30-40 of these as well, and we tallied about 6
Pink-footed, one Short-tailed, one Sooty, and a few other dark
shearwaters that got away without ID, not unanticipated with these two
difficult-to-spearate species. We also enjoyed all of the other usual
birds over the canyon; four species alcids included two early Pigeon
Guillemots in breeding plumage heading south, well off shore, probably
to the Farallones. And, yes, gulls, a healthy flock of which followed us
all day and consumed six bags of popcorn and two bags of Utz red-hot
cheese balls. Among the gulls was a nice frosty individual that had us
thinking of several rare species or combinations thereof, though after
studying the photos we settled on the uncommon (but still interesting)
American Herring x Glaucous-winged Gull, or "Cook Inlet" gull. Around
this time a nice 8-10' Salmon Shark was spotted right off the bow, among
an early crop of by-the-wind sailors (Velella velella).
*Humpback Whales*! The highlight for most if not all on the trip was
finding at least four Humpbacks back in the area, super early this year.
Last year we did not see any until July. Not only did we see humps but
also flipper flapping, breaching, and plenty of fluking, enabling us to
record the under-tail patterns for individual ID. Often we know who they
are and their entire history within 15 minutes of getting the shots.
Interestingly, this time, none of them came up on Happy Whale at first,
indicating unknown or poorly known individuals. Could this be due to the
unusually early date for these at this location? Time and more
photo-documentation will tell. By the time we got to the dock we did
find a match for one of them, which we will highlight in our Trip Report
(with photos), available soon at NoyoPelagics.com
<https://noyopelagics.com/>. As we headed in from the last whale, it
twisted and waved half of its body and tail at us about 15 times. Yep,
see you again, in April we hope.
We teased our lead-up to the trip by saying we'd see Gray Whales,
albatrosses... "and who knows what else? There has been very little
coverage offshore in late February." Well, humpbacks for one. For two,
on our way back in, just 3.25 miles from shore, Tim spotted a small
alcid on the water that wound up being a very confiding (for this
species) Scripp's Murrelet! This species is rare off our coast, usually
far offshore, in August-October but is completely unexpected in early
March. Checking eBird data, there are no records in Northern California
in February and only one in March, toward the end of the month in
Monterey Bay. It just goes to show that almost anything is possible on a
Noyo Pelagics trip!
Some photos of the frolicking whale and murrelet are here:
and we will include these and others on out soon-to-be-posted trip
report. Our next full-day trip is planned for April 4th and we should
have the sign-up buttons working this week at NoyoPelagics.com
<https://noyopelagics.com/>. We may also schedule more short-notice
half-day trips (5-10 days in advance) and if you want to keep appraised
of these, monitor Mendobirds and/or sign up for the Mendo-Pelagics list
serve at <Mendocino-Pelagics...> | Home
<https://groups.io/g/Mendocino-Pelagics>.
Hope to see you out there for some more unexpected findings!
