La Jolla – black-and-white booby, Common Murres, June 30, 2018

I spent about 2.5 hours seawatching this morning at La Jolla starting around 7:30am.  Joined about 8am by Justyn Stahl and we managed to stick it out until about 10am when the sun came out and viewing conditions deteriorated.  The nice heavy cloud cover marine layer made it easy on the eyes and not so much distortion earlier.

At 8:15am I spotted a very distant black-and-white booby making some half-hearted plunge dives near a pod of dolphin.  It was southwest of our position, probably a mile or further away.  With the distance a bit hard to see details of the extent of black in the flight feathers or any underwing marks.  I think Masked/Nazca on size, black trailing edge to wing, solid appearance and with recent reports seems most likely.

Also four adult Common Murre in alternate plumage flying south including a nice group of three together close in over the kelp outer edge.

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