Last weekend we took a pelagic birding trip off the coast of Half Moon Bay, CA. This was my first and the only pelagic birding tour. The trip was a resounding success and we were able to see a lot of birds. The sky was overcast grey and very cold, but we did see the birds.
We saw four species of Gulls, five species of Shearwaters, Fulmars, Fork-tailed Storm Petrel, Pomarine Jaeger, South-Polar Skua and three varieties of Albatrosses.
Of all the birds we saw, the Albatrosses were special, because I had never seen one before and had heard of them in my childhood. The first one we saw was a Black-footed Albatross, which is relatively common. Then my wife spotted a Laysan Albatross, which is similar size as the Black-footed, but has a white body. Then one of the birders spotted the Short-tailed Albatross which turned the atmosphere on the small boat electric.
Short-tailed Albatrosses are very rare and are endangered species. These birds were hunted to extinction in the late 1800s and early 1900s and by 1930s the only place where these were found was an island in Japan (Torishima). In order to save the species, the Japanese government passed a law banning their hunting, but the Albatrosses stopped breeding on the island. A very concerted effort to entice the remaining pelagic specimens to come back to breeding on the island was started and slowly the population has rebounded from about ~50 wild birds in the 1950s to about 2000+ birds estimated alive today.
This shot presented here is the only one we saw. I have photos that show GPS tracking transmitter on its back! I guess s/he is being tracked by researchers.
Thanks for reading so far and without further ado... here is the photo:
Wonderful story and wonderful image. I love the pink and the open bill. And the raised wings hides the (ugly) transmitter. All in all, fantastic.
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