ML455632401

Age

Not specified

Sex

Not specified

Behaviors

Flying

Observation details

Lifer species and family! There could have been a full order of magnitude more. I saw a thick stream that spanned the entire horizon heading south for over 12 minutes before I stopped paying attention. I checked again 20 minutes later and they were still going. The only experience I've had that could compare to their endless abundance was the great mammal migration on the serengeti. They seemed as numerous as the grains of sand on the beach. They were close enough that very careful observation just below the horizon was enough to see them with the naked eye. All I could really tell was that they were black and sort of big, but looking at terrible phone-scoped photos showed varying amounts of pale color in the underwings. My wife was feeling like she hadn't had much of a chance to get away from the house lately, so we decided to take this short trip out to the beach. We picked this spot mostly so I could try to see the Black-legged Kittiwake which would still be a life bird, but I quickly saw there were way too many birds to pick through, so we mostly skipped over that and just went down to let the kids play in the sand. Surprisingly, the little ones weren't running off or trying to eat much sand, so I had a few chances to scope out the huge flocks of gulls and pelicans (though tiny compared to the tubenoses further out). At one point, I tried looking further out and realized there was a huge amount of activity. Seeing their overall dark appearance and massive numbers I quickly called out, "lifer alert!" I look forward to one day being able to get out on a pelagic trip and see tubenoses at a more reasonable distance, but it was still really exciting to see these ones and marvel at how the entire horizon could be teeming with them.

Additional species

• California Gull Larus californicus

Technical information

Model

Pixel 6 Pro

Lens

Pixel 6 Pro back camera 6.81mm f/1.85

ISO

61

Focal length

6.8 mm

Flash

Flash did not fire

f-stop

f/1.9

Shutter speed

3763/1000000 sec

Dimensions

1933 pixels x 1449 pixels

Original file size

320.09 KB