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Coronados Islands – Nov 22, 2008

Nothing that out-of-the-ordinary on the Coronados Islands pelagic last saturday but I did get new photos of Black-legged Kittiwake and much better shots of Black-vented Shearwater. Also had a Peregrine Falcon do a fly-by a few miles from the islands – more than likely the same one that we see each time we visit the Coronados. As we got closer to the islands, a presumable House/White-crowned Sparrow flew up and over the boat. As we were all trying to ID the wayward sparrow, I shouted out “Where’s that Peregrine??!”. No more than 10 seconds after I shouted that, the Peregrine came out of nowhere and nailed the Sparrow!! Talk about bad luck – so much for any hopes of positively ID’ing the Peregrine’s snack.

Black-legged Kittiwake

Black-vented Shearwater

Common Dolphin doing a back-flip

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Posted by ctaylor on November 25, 2008 in Photography Adventures

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Tags: coronados, kitiwake, pelagic, peregrine falcon, shearwater

Monterey Bay

October 13

Drove up to Monterey, CA this weekend for back to back Debi Shearwater pelagic trips. Debi is also the one we will be going to Antarctica with next winter. All six of the guides from the Antarctica trip happened to be on the boat with us, along with WINGS leader Steve Howell, which gave me ample time to pick their brains on any questions I had.

Saturday’s pelagic out of Monterey was pretty rough with swells exceeding 12′. Many people were sick, sacrificing their breakfast and lunch to the seagulls following the boat. Fortunately I was not one of them! Sunday’s boat trip out of Santa Cruz was much calmer as the winds had died down overnight. The highlight of the weekend were a pod of Humpback Whales that were being harassed by 6 Transient Orcas (Killer Whale). We suspect the group of Orcas were trying to kill one of the Humpback Whale calves. We don’t think they succeeded as we only noticed the remnants of a California Sea Lion floating in the water.

Lots of images follow:

Sea Otter

Humpback Whale

Transient Orca

Risso’s Dolphin

California Sea Lion

Sooty Shearwater

Buller’s Shearwater

Pink-footed Shearwater

Black-footed Albatross

Northern Fulmar

Common Murre

Marbled Murrelet

South Polar Skua

Golden-crowned Sparrow

Northern Harrier

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Posted by ctaylor on October 13, 2008 in Photography Adventures

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Tags: albatross, debi, dolphin, humpback, killer whale, monterey, murre, murrelet, orca, pelagic, sea otter, shearwater, skua, whale

Austin, TX and Coronados Islands, Mexico

October 07

It’s been a pretty busy schedule the past month for me so I haven’t had much time to post updates on my blog. We were in Austin, TX for the Austin City Limits music festival a couple weekends ago. I was able to get out one of the days we were there to try to photograph any Scissor-tailed Flycatchers still hadn’t moved south. I lucked out when someone from Austin posted he just had several in NW Austin. He was very helpful in giving me specific directions which yielded the following photos:

Scissor-tailed Flycatcher

Last Saturday I did another 3/4 day pelagic trip out to the 9-Mile Bank and the Coronados Islands in Mexican waters southwest of San Diego. Big surprise was a single (1 yr.) Blue-footed Booby among the many Brown Boobies. I was also able to get some better photos of Black-vented, Pink-footed and Sooty Shearwaters.

Other nice surprises included a pod of Blue Whale many Bottlenose, Risso’s and Common Dolphins along with a lone Elephant Seal on the Coronados Islands.

Photos from the pelagic follow:

Pink-footed Shearwater