Date: 4/2/26 10:12 am From: <lehman.paul...> via groups.io <lehman.paul...> Subject: [SanDiegoRegionBirding] Imperial Beach Cocos Booby total: 123
Thursday morning I spent exactly 3 hours seawatching In imperial Beach from the south end of Seacoast Drive up on the little berm, from 6:50 to 9:50 a.m. Beginning at 6:50 a.m., Cocos Boobies started flying by, all heading north, a fair number of which were incredibly close to shore. By the time the dust settled, my total was 123 birds, by far a record for San Diego County waters. I only saw two or three birds all morning go southbound. Because my view up the shore is blocked looking North by buildings, I don't know how much farther north they continued close to shore or if they soon swung out more toward Point Loma. But I would imagine that given how close they were to shore where I was standing that they would have provided superb views from the end of the imperial Beach Pier. The largest numbers were between around 7:00 and 8:30 AM. Also good numbers of loons of all three species flying every which way, and several hundred young Heermann's Gulls. Several Parasitic Jaegers.
Back to the boobies for a moment: The total population on the Los Coronados Islands is currently uncertain, as best I have heard, though I do not expect it's very much larger than 123. So the question then becomes are this morning's birds all from the roost on these nearby Islands and the best foraging now is all off southern San Diego County, or did this surge include birds from even farther to the south? I'll also add that there were two seawatchers at La Jolla this morning, and as of 8:15 a.m. they had seen only two Cocos Boobies from there. My total this morning included well over 15 distinctly pale-headed adult males, which normally are decidedly scarce when we see boobies from pelagic trips. On a few of them, the head was so extensively whitish that observers should be careful they don't confuse such birds with other species such as Blue-footed. I saw no booby this morning that was anything other than a clear Cocos.
Lastly, it remains to be seen if this phenomenon continues for additional days or if there was something about today that was somewhat unique, such as that it was windier this morning than it has been. But clearly there's a lot of foraging activity going on here very close to shore.
Paul Lehman, San Diego
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