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Large Bonaparte's Flock & Misc @ Sea-watch Grover Beach

Brad Schram
 

 1 hr 10 min with the spotting scope at Grover Beach this morning revealed a large Bonaparte's Gull flock that alternately formed, fragmented, and re-formed, then settled on the water at the edge of 'scope ID range.  The compact flock varied from about 60 birds to 200+ birds, counting by tens.  Occasionally they'd jump off the water en masse and fly around close to the surface for a minute or longer rather like a flock of giant white icterids before resettling.  Individual birds and small flocks came and went, all the Bonaparte's that came close to shore were first winter birds.  There could easily have been 500 Bonaparte's within a mile or so of my vantage point, but it's impossible for one person to see and keep track of all at once. On one occasion the large flock jumped and wheeled about due to a harassing Parasitic Jaeger.  Three Parasitics were seen there this morning. 

Black-vented Shearwaters were well offshore in small numbers, and a lone gray morph Fulmar was the only one seen.  Only two Elegant and three Forster's Terns were seen.  A flock of a dozen scaup flew by, two of which were Greater Scaup.  No alcids were seen.

Brad Schram
Arroyo Grande
Wes Fritz
 

Hi all,
I was out on Pismo Dunes off road use area this morning too. As Brad mentions there was a very large aggregation of gulls and of note was a couple hundred Bonaparte’s Gulls along with a fair number of Herring and a Short-billed Gull along with the expected gulls. One Pink-foot and several Black-vented Shearwaters were seen too. They seemed to be following a few Humpback Whales. It was a great show. 
  While having lunch at Bayside Cafe in Morro Bay we watched about 40 Bonaparte’s gulls with some terns feeding just north of the oyster ranch.

Good birding.

Wes Fritz
805 895 0685
wes-fritz@...
Solvang CA

On Nov 10, 2022, at 11:50 AM, Brad Schram <gonebrdn@...> wrote:

  1 hr 10 min with the spotting scope at Grover Beach this morning revealed a large Bonaparte's Gull flock that alternately formed, fragmented, and re-formed, then settled on the water at the edge of 'scope ID range.  The compact flock varied from about 60 birds to 200+ birds, counting by tens.  Occasionally they'd jump off the water en masse and fly around close to the surface for a minute or longer rather like a flock of giant white icterids before resettling.  Individual birds and small flocks came and went, all the Bonaparte's that came close to shore were first winter birds.  There could easily have been 500 Bonaparte's within a mile or so of my vantage point, but it's impossible for one person to see and keep track of all at once. On one occasion the large flock jumped and wheeled about due to a harassing Parasitic Jaeger.  Three Parasitics were seen there this morning. 

Black-vented Shearwaters were well offshore in small numbers, and a lone gray morph Fulmar was the only one seen.  Only two Elegant and three Forster's Terns were seen.  A flock of a dozen scaup flew by, two of which were Greater Scaup.  No alcids were seen.

Brad Schram
Arroyo Grande
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