Curtis Marantz, Dave Pereksta, Brad Schram and I led the Morro Bay Winter
Bird Festival boat trip out of Port San Luis today. Wes Fritz assisted with
the chumming. We headed west-southwest to the Santa Lucia Bank and returned on
a slightly northern route. Our highlight was two PARAKEET AUKLEETS seen
well by everyone on the boat. And, we managed to get some good photographs of
the birds which were found at -121°03'676" W, 35°05'195" N, or about 14 miles
west-southwest of Point Buchon. This is the second county record for this
species, the first involved a deceased bird picked up on the beach at San
Simeon
on February 6, 1955. Brad Schram's photos can be seen at
_http://www.flickr.com/photos/chaparralbrad/sets/_ (http:
//www.flickr.com/photos/chaparralbrad/sets/) at the end of the California
Vagrant Birds set.

Other birds seen today included a few hundred NORTHERN FULMAR (at least one
flock of over 100 birds seen on the water), PINK-FOOTED, SOOTY and
SHORT-TAILED, and BLACK-VENTED Shearwaters, several hundred each COMMON MURRE,
CASSIN'S
AUKLET and RHINOCEROS AUKLET, three ANCIENT MURRELETS and three MARBLED
MURRELETS. Two interesting sightings were a single Forster's Tern resting on a
bull kelp stalk and four Brant that flew by, both about 25 miles offshore.

Tom Edell
Cayucos, CA


**************Inauguration '09: Get complete coverage from the nation's
capital.
(http://news.aol.com/main/politics/inauguration?ncid=emlcntusnews00000003)


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]