Trip Report. Noyo Pelagics, 3, 4, & 5 October 2025
Fifteen to 20 participants accompanied us on our full-day trip of the 3rd and half-day trips of the 4th and 5th, with captain Richard Thornton of Anchor Charters and Noyo Pelagics. Yet again we got lessons in weather conditions and their effects on birds and our ability to see them. We’ve all become Meteornithologists.
The full-day trip on the 3rd was exhilarating. Northwest winds were reasonable at first, then picked up to 25 knots on us when we were about 20 miles out in Noyo Canyon, but swell was low and so it never became too uncomfortable, and we had a great ride home. As we’ve learned this year, wind can be our friend, and this was the case on this trip, as birds were everywhere, all day long, including a huge flock of gulls and albatrosses that followed our popcorn and fish-bit trail all day and attracted many of our interesting sightings.
Out of the gate we had another Cocos Booby buzz us while we were checking out a feeding flock. It was an adult female, an age/sex group that requires a point-blank view and photos to separate from the now-split Brown Booby of Hawaii, so technically it is a “Cocos/Brown Booby,” but we call it a Cocos for simplicity, peace of mind, and just to move on. The 1000s of shearwaters that have been around since late spring continued, including some large flocks of Sooties (5,000+ on the day), Pink-foots (500+), and Buller’s (100+) sitting on the water. “Scattershot” photos of these flocks later revealed many Short-tailed Shearwaters, including 14+ in one flock and, when ratios with Sooties are calculated, probably some 200+ on the day. All the usual– jaegers (3 species), Sabine’s Gulls, Ashy Storm-Petrels, Common and Elegant Terns, alcids, phalaropes, etc.– were also about.
But the big highlight was the number of South Polar Skuas, over 20 total, a record for Mendocino. We largely see dark-headed younger birds but we also had 3-4 “blond-headed” adults. We wondered if it was getting late for them to return the 9,000+ miles to their Antarctic breeding grounds; then again, it remains frozen down there until at least December, so they do in fact have some time.
Young South Polar Skuas with Pomarine Jaeger and California Gull, and “blond-headed” adult.
Photos: Roger Adamson and Tim Bray
The winds continued for our half-day trip on the 4th but this did not slow us down. Well, actually it did, physically, but luckily in such weather we don’t have to get out very far. In upper Noyo Canyon we stopped for a chum slick to draw in birds. We again kept a gull frenzy behind us, and this drew in other birds, including Pomarine and Parasitic Jaegers, four South Polar Skuas, a gorgeous juvenile Sabine’s Gull, and a surprise adult Arctic Tern this late and close to shore. The photographers had fun getting the Skua and a Jaeger in the same frame, a concentration of malevolence (see image above). The gull flock consisted almost entirely of Western and California Gulls, but one third-cycle Glaucous-winged Gull was a nice addition and an indication that winter is coming. A few Black-footed Albatrosses came in and one tore into the sablefish carcasses provided to us by the Princess Seafood Market. And we apparently refound the odd melanistic Sooty Shearwater that we highlighted in our September report.
Sabine’s Gull (left) and Bonaparte’s Gull (right).
Photo: Roger Adamson and Tim Bray
Our half-day trips are often dedicated more to seeing marine mammals. About an hour out we found a very cooperative Humpback Whale that allowed close approach and repeatedly fluked, giving everyone great views. Photos of the undertail signature identified it as CRC-20175, a whale that was first reported off Moss Landing in April 2019 and has since been seen ten times off Mexico and California. This is becoming a familiar pattern; most of the Humpbacks we see here migrate south to winter off Mexico, then move north to the Monterey area in spring, before coming here in late summer.
Humpbacks CRC-20175 (top) and CRC-20745 (bottom).
Photos: Tim Bray.
Winds slackened for the 5th, and after a bumpy ride out (due to leftover slop from the winds) the seas smoothed out nicely. But, as often happens when winds die, the fog rolled in. Zero visibility can certainly ruin a pelagic trip, more so than any other weather condition. In addition, gulls and albatrosses are quite uninterested in popcorn and even fish bits when the winds are calm. Too much work flying, too little reward. But, after stumbling around in the fog for a couple of hours, we burst out into glorious visibility and calm blue seas.
The first thing we encountered was a flock of about 700+ shearwaters sitting on the water and, to our surprise, there were very few Sooties, only about 20. Rather, the flock was dominated by Pink-foots (550) and Buller’s (150) and also included at least one Short-tailed and two Flesh-footed Shearwaters (a high count for our trips). Perhaps the most interesting bird in this flock was an all-dark Pink-footed Shearwater. These can closely resemble Flesh-foots but are grayer rather than dark brown and often show slight paling to the underparts and underwing. The bird we saw was not the darkest one out there but was close. Surveys on the breeding grounds indicate that only about one in 10,000 are dark, and there is current debate on whether these should be considered “dark morphs” or are simply melanistic individuals.
Melaoistic Sooty (upper left) and Pink-footed (upper right) Shearwaters, and two Flesh-footed Shearwaters (arrows) in the flock.
Photos: Tim Bray and Peter Pyle.
Other avian highlights on the 5th included jaegers, phalaropes, and more arriving gull species as fall continues toward winter: American Herring Gulls, Short-billed (Mew) Gull, Bonaparte’s Gull, Glaucous-winged Gulls, and hybrids of these and Western Gulls. An ichthian highlight was a very large Ocean Sunfish (Mola mola) that floated within 10 feet of the boat in crystal clear water for 15 minutes.
We had not seen any whales before bursting out of the fog so finding one was a priority. No worries, this is Noyo Canyon! Soon a spout and the etymological humping back was spotted and we were able to carefully approach and follow this whale as it lollygagged to the south. This one turned out to be CRC-20745, which has only been reported three previous times: at the end of May and early June of 2022 in Monterey Bay, and once off Cabo San Lucas in January 2024, so the pattern described above holds again!
Rhinoceros Auklet (left) and Ocean Sunfish (right).
Photo: Roger Adamson and Peter Pyle.
Soon after we got back to the dock on the 5th, the internet exploded with news of a Waved Albatross observed over Cordell Bank, some 70 miles to the southeast, the first sighting north of Costa Rica. Cordell Bank has been proclaimed “the best place in North America, for pelagic birding,” the venerable location, but there is now a friendly rivalry on this point with upstart Noyo Canyon. Cordell has the better history of exceptional birds, including seven species of albatross (BFAL, LAAL, STAL, White-capped, Chatham’s, Light-mantled, and Waved, and not to mention a Wandering Albatross on the adjacent Sonoma coast) and several southern species of petrels. But with a much lower sample size of trips, Noyo is holding its own, with a likely Herald Petrel this past May rivaling the Waved Albatross in record exceptionalism, although lacking the ‘charismatic megafauna’ factor of the albatross. Noyo’s ace in the hole is being much closer to shore, reachable during rough conditions (as on the trip of the 4th) and allowing 6-8 hours in deep pelagic waters during full-day trips. We also seem to have the market on Short-tailed Albatrosses, with three observed this year (and about 10 over Noyo Canyon through the years) among up to 1000 Black-foots per trip. With all these BFALs visiting Noyo Canyon in March-May, we are eager to get out there next spring, hoping to find a few of the above and other Southern Hemisphere albatross species among the throngs, and otherwise adding more diversity data to the Noyo legacy.
We have full-day trips planned for October 31st and November 21st and a half-day trip on November 2nd. We are getting into times of the year with less historical coverage off California, and we are eager to see what might show up. November is when Short-tailed Albatrosses can become more prevalent again (after fewer records in June-October) and Mottled Petrels, Stejneger’s Petrels, and Parakeet Auklets are on our radar for this time of year. You can sign up for these at https://noyopelagics.com/.
Peter Pyle and Time Bray
Waved Albatross, Cordell Bank, 5 October 2025.
Photo: Hugh Cotter.
