September 4-7, 2003

This trip was our first to take place in late summer/early fall, and as such
was very much an exploratory effort. We decided to take three days and search
the area around the Cortez Bank, which lies 110 miles due west of San Diego,
California, and then continue out into deeper water to the south and west. While
the absolute number of birds wasn’t high, we did get two extraordinary
sightings (Bulwer’s Petrel and Red-tailed Tropicbird), as well as good looks
at some of the more expected late-summer species.

SPECIES 4th 5th 6th Totals
Black-footed Albatross 0 0 1 1
Bulwer’s Petrel 1 0 0 1
Black-vented Shearwater 1 0 0 1
Sooty Shearwater 3 0 0 3
Pink-footed Shearwater 45 2 0 50
Shearwater sp. 0 0 1 1
Leach’s Storm-petrel 0 50 125 175
Black Storm-petrel 40 8 8 56
Least Storm-petrel 2 0 2 4
Red-billed Tropicbird 0 4 6 10
Red-tailed Tropicbird 0 0 1 1
Brown Pelican 1 0 0 1
Red-necked Phalarope 20 20 0 40
Red Phalarope 8 80 60 148
Least Sandpiper 0 1 0 1
Western Gull 100 80 5 185
Heermann’s Gull 10 0 0 10
Sabine’s Gull 0 3 1 4
Whimbrel 8 0 0 8
Forster’s Tern 1 0 0 1
Common Tern 100 1 0 101
Arctic Tern 12 0 0 12
Royal Tern 10 0 0 10
Elegant Tern 25 0 0 25
Long-tailed Jaeger 1 3 1 5
Parasitic Jaeger 8 1 0 9
Pomarine Jaeger 15 4 1 20
Vaux’s Swift 0 0 1 1
Others
Blue Whale 6 2 0 8
Sperm Whale 2 0 0 2
Baird’s Beaked Whale 0 20 0 20
Long-beaked Common Dolphin 60 0 0 60
Short-beaked Common Dolphin 200 0 0 200
Harbor Seal 1 0 0 1
Mako Shark 1 0 0 1
Blue Shark 0 1 0 1
Mola Mola (Ocean Sunfish) 20 30 0 50
Albacore 0 2 2 4
Shipjack Tuna 0 2 12 14
Yellowtail 0 0 1 1