Unable to Evade Their Watchers, Even at Sea

Paul Clarke woke at 4 a.m., drove 94 miles through the dark from his home in Claremont to Ventura Harbor, swallowed a few pills to keep his seasickness at bay and climbed onto this boat for a foggy, windy 12-hour trip.

It was worth it. At the 100-fathom line, he spotted his quarry: a long-tailed jaeger, its delicate tail a ribbon streaming from its body.

Bird watching, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, is the fastest-growing outdoor activity in the nation. More than 51 million Americans are estimated to watch birds. But few are as hard-core as oceanic birders like Clarke, who go to great lengths to catch glimpses of birds that only in the rarest of cases can be seen from land.

On a recent Saturday, about 30 pelagic birders rose early to wander among and beyond the Channel Islands. As the boat set out at dawn, there was almost no water traffic. It was too early for pleasure cruisers, sailboats and tourists headed for the islands. There were a smattering of surfers, a container ship from Hamburg in the distance and one fishing charter.

But the rest of the ocean was empty, except for a horizon dotted with seabirds such as petrels, shearwaters and south polar skuas, marathon fliers that easily make the long trip between Antarctica and California.

Some of the birders had made long trips themselves. Wanda and Ren Bilkey came from Shepherdsville, Ky., in search of birds such as the black-vented shearwater, a West Coast denizen that they could never find in their landlocked city.

“We came to California for vacation, but we came to bird,” said Wanda Bilkey. Like many serious birders, they keep a “life list” of species they have seen. Their tally is a respectable 550, helped along by several new California bird sightings.

Though friendly, birding can be competitive.

One group on the boat was trying to compile a list of birds in Santa Barbara County, while a second group wanted to list birds in Ventura County. This led to occasional sparring over precisely which county the boat was in when a bird was seen.

They helped their own cause by tossing a steady of stream of popcorn “chum” off the back of the boat to attract birds that scan the open sea for miles in search of food. A dose of cod liver oil, irresistible to storm petrels, can also entice birds into viewing distance.

Birds are abundant in Central California because the current brings deep, nutrient-rich waters to the surface and leaves the region thick with fish and krill.

The ocean’s bounty also attracts a host of other sea life. On this trip, scores of leaping dolphins cut through the surf. Flying fish crossed the wake. A blue whale spouted nearby, his 90-foot body flowing through a long, gentle dive.

The largest animal alive, the blue whale may be a majestic and rare sight, but the boat paused only a moment before moving on. It didn’t stop at all for the dolphins. This trip, after all, was about birds.

“I’m glad we don’t have a lot of whale people aboard,” said Mitch Heindel, a Palos Verdes Peninsula birder who has logged more than 1,000 hours watching birds at sea and who volunteers to lead such trips. “They want to follow the whales all day.”

Speaking over a microphone from the captain’s cabin near the bow, Heindel kept up a steady patter about the birds within sight, reeling off their names. “Cormorant, black turnstone, sanderling, pelican,” he intoned as the boat pulled out of the harbor and past the breakwaters.

After the initial burst of birds, an hour passed with little to see. It was classic pelagic birding, according to Heindel: long periods of boredom interspersed with frenzied pulses of activity.

What to a novice looks like a black speck on the horizon, Heindel can identify in a second. He checks the pattern of wing beats, the shape of the silhouette, how high the bird dances above the waves.

He shouted the location of birds using a system based on a clock face. Twelve o’clock is dead ahead, 6 o’clock directly behind. When Heindel yelled: “Sooty shearwaters, 7 o’clock!” the riders rushed to the stern, their black binoculars glued to their eyes. “Another one at 2 o’clock!” rang out and they rushed to starboard.

This group, mostly veterans, could easily distinguish between the grayish collection of shearwater cousins.

The sooty shearwater is darker than the others. The black feathers on the back of the rare Buller’s shearwater form the letter M. And the pink-footed shearwater is also identifiable by an abundance of white on its belly.

To many aboard, the most dazzling site was a group of 37 Sabine’s gulls that dipped in and out of the water at the boat’s edge, swallowing krill and flashing graceful white and black-tipped wings.

“It’s a big ocean,” said Phil Sayre, a 20-year veteran of birding from Covina who helps organize the trips for the Los Angeles Audubon Society. “But if you’re in the right place, you’ll see them.”