La Jolla Cove, July 6

La Jolla Cove, July 6
By – 10:52 am
Spent from 6:15-8:45 at the Cove with Tammy Russell.Many birds feeding out about 1.5 miles offshore: 350 brown pelicans, 1500 black-vented shearwaters, thousands of terns and gulls.No alcids. 2 black oystercatchers.Yesterday there was only a handful of adult Heermann’s gulls sitting on the point.Today there were several dozen—and 3 fresh juveniles—as well as a few second and third year birds.A major migratory push was happening: about 700 others were offshore flying north.Most interesting bird of the day: a juvenile Pelagic Cormorant was sitting on the rocks beneath my bench, the first obvious juvenile I’ve ever seen here.Could have been a visitor from the Los Coronados Islands, but also could have been indicative of local nesting. There are no confirmed nesting records for San Diego, but the number of summering pelagic cormorants in La Jolla has increased greatly since the bird atlas came out.Stan Walens, San DiegoJuly 6, 2022; 10:40 pmBVAS October trip to the Choco-Andes region of Ecuador; sign up deadline is in 10 daysFor more information, see https://holbrooktravel.com/where-we-travel/central-and-south-america/ecuador/birding-choco-andes-region-buena-vista-audubon