The 4 day Searcher Pelagic left San Diego Monday a little before noon on it's annual swing through the Southern California Bight and beyond. The trips spent Monday at the 9 and 30. mile banks off San Diego. We started Tuesday at Santa Barbara Island and the Sutil Rock booby colony and then moved NW across the Santa Cruz Basin hitting a variety of featured before anchoring behind San Miguel Island at dark. Day 3 we left San Miguel Island at 4AM and were just east of Rodriguez Dome at dawn. We crossed the Dome and proceeded south to the San Juan Seamount, then southeast to a deep 2100 fathom canyon located there. the fourth day found us near the Tanner Bank moving Southeast to the San Clemente basin. We started a bit east of our usual location as we needed to be back to shore about 7 hours early to avoid the hihi winds offshore predicted due to Kay. We were still able to bird until dark, so no impact on the trip, and in fact one of the best birds of the trip was found late in the day in an area we typically don't bird. We were back at the dock by midnight, where we all slept on the boat and had a hardy breakfast before departing at our usual morning time.

I've been fortunate to participate in 18 of the 19 fall Searcher trips, and this was one of if not the best for diversity of species, weather, and the great looks we got at the vast majority of birds and mammals. A big thanks to my co-leaders Dave Pereksta, Dave Povey and Jon Feenstra. Also a big thanks to Art Taylor, Celia Condit, and the the crew of Searcher who took great care of us as they always do.

We keep bird checklists and haven't added everything up yet, so the numbers are approximate where given

Black-footed Albatross (Seen everyday)
Pink-footed Shearwater
Sooty Shearwater
Manx Shearwater 2 (one in SD and one in SB counties)
Black-vented Shearwater
Buller's Shearwater (about 500 most on the San Juan Seamount)
Ashy Storm-Petrel
Black Storm-petrel
Leach's Storm-Petrel (most the dark or dusky-rumped Mexico breeders)
Least Storm-Petrels (40 or so, seen in SD, LA, SB, and VEN) more widespread and numerous than typical
Townsend's Storm-Petrel (seen more inshore than in some years and seen every day)
Wedge-rumped Storm-Petrel (1 at a slick near in the late afternoon on Thursday in LA county about 7 miles west of the "corner"
Cook's Petrels (40 or so, mostly south of Rodriguez Dome)
Hawaiian Petrel 1 (South of Rodriguez Dome)
Craveri's Murrelet (about 60 mostly near Santa Cruz Basin)
Scripp's Murrelet 4
Guadalupe Murrelet 7 (some incredible looks)
Cassin's Auklet 2
Common Murre 1
Brown Booby
Red-footed Booby 2
Blue-footed Booby 2.5 (2 adults and the continuing Brown X Blue-footed hybrid) all on Sutil
2 Nazca Boobies
Red Phalarope
Red-necked Phalarope
Red-billed Tropicbird 5 (with two different birds on the water allowing close approach)
Sabine's Gulls
Arctic Terns
Parasitic, Pomarine, and Long-tailed Jaegers

Marine Mammals included
Humpback, Blue, and Fin Whales
Baird's Beaked-Whales
10-12 ETP Orcas
Short-beaked Common Dolphin
Bottle-Nosed Dolphin
California Sea-Lions
Elephant Seals
Gudalupe Fur-Seals

Quite a haul for 4 days.......

The trip is already sold out for 2023, but you can go to bajawhale.com for info about the trips. a more detailed trip report with some photos will be prepared and all these sightings will be placed in ebird with photos over the next month.
Todd McGrath
skua@...
The Woodlands, TX