Top 100 Birding Sites of the World

Information

SITE RANK

HABITAT Open ocean, inshore waters

KEY SPECIES Black-footed Albatross, Black, Ashy and Least Storm Petrels, Rhinoceros and Cassin’s Akulets, Craveri’s, Ancient and Xantus’s Murrelets

TIME OF YEAR Autumn from August to October is best for a wide variety of species, but there is something of interest to see all year

Despite the gentle undulations on land, Monterey Bay lies above an enormous underwater canyon, from which nutrients rise from the seabed to provide food for large numbers of seabirds.

Seabirds can be among the hardest of groups for birders to see, since many of them live exclusively far out in the ocean and rarely, if ever, come close to shore. At Monterey Bay in California, however, owing to a quirk of geography, just a few kilometres from dry land there lies the rim of a deep underwater canyon that shunts cold water, together with a rich broth of nutrients, up towards the surface. This upwelling is so rich in food that seabirds from far and wide simply cannot help themselves and come well within range of medium-sized vessels crowded with sea-birders on day trips. As a result, Monterey Bay is North America’s most famous pelagic destination.

Seabirds appear off Monterey throughout the year. The autumn period, between August and October, usually brings the richest crop of species, and this is when most trips are run. However, several specialities occur throughout the year, including the famous Black-footed Albatrosses, and some, such as the rare Laysan Albatross, are more frequent in winter. Of course, pelagic sea-birding is highly unpredictable, so it usually requires several trips to get sightings of all your desired species.

Some of the birds seen at Monterey travel vast distances to get there. Buller’s Shearwater, for example, which is a scarce visitor in the autumn, comes from its breeding grounds in New Zealand, and the rare Short-tailed Albatross, now a very rare visitor, comes from Japan, on the opposite side of the Pacific Ocean. Meanwhile the two other albatrosses, the Black-footed and Laysan, both breed in the Hawaiian islands in mid-Pacific, more than 3,000 km away. Radio-tracking studies have shown that albatrosses sometimes make vast journeys from their breeding sites to fetch food for their young and, should you see one of these birds in the winter, it is incredible to believe that it could merely be engaged on what is effectively a shopping trip on a grand scale.

Other birds encountered on the pelagic trips have travelled much less far, including several of the region’s rare and endemic storm petrels. The greyish-coloured Ashy Storm Petrel, for example, breeds mainly on the Farallon Islands and Channel Islands off California, and in late September and October large concentrations of this species gather off the northern rim of Monterey’s submarine canyon. It is estimated that 90 per cent of the world population of this bird (9,000 individuals) may be involved in these gatherings, along with several other storm petrel species. Two of these, Black and Least Storm Petrels, breed mainly in the Gulf of California to the south and are much less numerous and reliable in their appearance than the Ashy. Nevertheless this large gathering of storm petrels, which at times includes Wilson’s, Wedge-rumped and Fork-tailed Storm Petrels as well, is one of the major highlights of birding in Monterey Bay.

In a worldwide context, the other important group of birds seen on these northern Californian pelagics is the auks, even though their presence fails to register the same whoops of delight that greet every albatross sighting. Among these are the highly localized species, Xantus’s and Craveri’s Murrelets. These two black-and-white midgets are difficult to tell apart, and the situation is further complicated by the fact that Xantus’s comes in two forms, with differing amounts of white around the eye and slightly different bill length; the forms are hotly tipped to be split into two species, with the northern form being known as Scripps’s Murrelet. Craveri’s Murrelet breeds mainly in the Gulf of California, while Xantus’s breeds on the Pacific coast from California to Mexico. The population of neither species exceeds 10,000 birds.

Although the rare murrelets first appear in the autumn, the best time for auks is probably the winter. This is when enormous numbers of Cassin’s Auklets, a small smoky-grey crustacean-eating auk with a short bill, begin to appear off these coasts. It is estimated that about one million birds can be found off California in winter. Not that most pelagic watchers would know it; Cassin’s Auklets are notoriously shy, and flee over the water whenever a boat appears on the horizon. Another common winter visitor is the Ancient Murrelet, a smart black, white and grey auklet with a tiny yellow bill, while fish-eating Tufted Puffins are scarce.

Of course, many other seabirds can be seen along with these scarcer species and groups. The commonest bird seen is often the Sooty Shearwater, present here all year round, while Pink-footed Shearwaters can be common in autumn and Short-tailed Shearwaters in the winter. Waders are represented by Grey and Rednecked Phalaropes, and Western and Heermann’s Gulls – both quite localized species in their own right – are abundant close to the shore. In late summer Sabine’s Gulls pass through, and about the same time there may be large movements of Arctic Terns, pursued all the way by Long-tailed Skuas. In the winter, divers and grebes may also be in the mix.

Not surprisingly, rarities are recorded among the seabirds from time to time. These may include such birds as Red-billed Tropicbird, Masked Booby and Bulwer’s Petrel, but of course, with the usual unpredictability of all things to do with birding, almost anything could turn up.

One of Monterey’s star species is the Black-footed Albatross.

Heermann’s Gull, something of a California speciality, is common on the Pacific shoreline.