John started a pelagic, 6 AM Saturday, October 13th, out of San Diego. They cruised out along the continental shelf to the back side of San Clemente Island, returning to port early Monday morning, October 15th.
On board were several people he has spent time with on various venues over this past year. Sandy Komito was there, we met him at High Island, also, a guy who was with John on Attu, a guy who was on the weather cancelled boat and then the boat that finally went out to Dry Tortugas, and a lady who was at the Sax-Zim festival with us last February. The bunks were nearly full. Crazy birders all.
At firs,t there were tons of storm petrals. Way out to sea, John was surprised to see lots of Brown Pelicans and Western Gulls along the continent's edge. The Sax-Zim lady got a life bird with the Red-Billed Tropicbird. John got the Guadalupe Murrelet that he had missed on the last San Diego pelagic. He is now at 662 for his big year list. And lots of pictures. He was happy to get better pictures of the Least Storm Petral. John is getting close to having decent pictures of 600 bird species taken this year.
I am blogging from my sister's farm in Minnesota. I don't do pelagics. John called me with his report as soon as he got home. He will start the download of his pictures onto hard drives and crawl into bed. It isn't easy to get a good night's sleep on a boat.
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