La Jolla Cove, Jan 10
La Jolla Cove, Jan 10
By {authorlink} – 7:55 pm
Was at the Cove from a bit before 7:00 till 9:00, with Paul Lehman and Tammy Russell during intermittent rainstorms. Pretty good winds during those 2 hours, although they were from the southeast. The winds died at 9:00. The hope was that the storms to our north would push something interesting down here. Pffft!
There was a nice feeding frenzy of black-vented shearwaters, Bonaparte’s gulls and other gulls, pelicans and cormorants, quite close to shore, as well as a stream of shearwaters about a mile offshore. Impossible to count numbers with the flocks swirling all over the place and circling around. A very very wild guess would be about 1000 shearwaters and 400 Bonaparte’s. They were simply stunning to watch in good diffused light.
Otherwise it was pretty unspectacular. 4 or 5 parasitic jaegers predating the Bonaparte’s, a grand total of 5 surf scoters, 2 red-throated loons, and nothing else.
Winds tomorrow are gentle and still offshore; it’s hard to know if we’ll see any southward movement. More fronts coming through in a few days.
On another note, Buena Vista Audubon Society’s next international trip with Holbrook Travel is an 11-day trip to Costa Rica in May, 2023.
It’s a fantastic itinerary, and pretty inexpensive as these trips go.
Final day to register is very soon, January 30.
If you are interested, there is information on the BVAS website, buried at the bottom of this page:
And detailed itineraries can be found on Holbrook’s website at
Stan Walens, San Diego
Jan 10, 2023; 7:50 pm