brown boobies, pacific golden-plover, etc tijuana estuary 8-30-18
Did not see Gary's post until well after our visit, but no masked/Nazca booby seen this morning off Tijuana Estuary. However, from 9:55 to 10:30, Janne Torres and I observed at least 2 brown boobies (and I suspect the number was realistically closer to 4 to 6) off Border Field SP to the SW of the rivermouth. A handful of black-vented shearwaters were out on the horizon line as well. There was a notably low number (finger-countable) of elegant terns.
Around noon, 2 reddish egrets were foraging/dancing in the river channel immediately upstream of the rivermouth, one adult & one juv. At least one large-billed savannah sparrow was foraging in the kelp wrack to the west of the south end of the barrier dune. From 12:05 through 12:25, the continuing Pacific golden-plover was visible roosting in verbena on the edge of the channel NE of the rivermouth (easily visible with binoculars looking east from the west side of the snowy plover/least tern nesting area twine fence, as it looked at us from its spot on the channel edge at the east side of the nest area about 200 yd north of the south end of the fenced nest area). As Gary reported, a snowy plover chick continues in that south end of the nest area (should be flying in the next week, whew!).
Robert Patton
San Diego, CA
Source: SanDiegoRegionBirding Latest Reports