Coastsider Gary Deghi, vice president of the Sequoia Audubon Society, overcame his seasickness to join the second expedition. It paid off the moment he registered sight of a white-chinned petrel.
“It was practically pandemonium,” said Deghi, describing the reaction of about 30 birders onboard upon realizing they’d spotted the rare bird. “Everyone was really excited. It became very clear we were looking at a bird that only two or three people on the boat had seen before … and was, perhaps, a bird that had never been seen before off the (west) coast of North America.”
 A group of bird-watchers spotted this rare short-tailed albatross, donning a Japanese satellite transmitter on his back, off the Coastside in October. It was the first pelagic expedition in search of rare birds out of Pillar Point Harbor in more than a decade. |
“I have to admit that I had absolute goose bumps when I realized that this was a white-chinned petrel, a species I know well from South America – but in California!” remarked Jaramillo, a native of Chile, in an e-mail announcement the day after the sighting. Jaramillo described the feeling as “aquatic cloud nine.” He’s submitted the sighting to the state records committee for formal acknowledgement.
The petrel, a bulky, dark chocolate-colored sea bird about 22 inches long with a white bill, lives and nests in the southern hemisphere. Though colonies are found around the globe – from Australia to Peru and to Namibia – it’s an exceptionally rare sighting north of the equator, according to Audubon California Executive Director Graham Chisholm.
Speaking generally about such unlikely sightings, Chisholm said more birders are picking up rare spectacles these days, a phenomenon he attributes to climate change tilting the nature’s balance.
“My guess is that for the past 25 years, and for the next 100 years or more, we’ll see more dramatic changes of distribution of these birds and fish and animals off the coast,” he said.
One week prior to the petrel sighting, a similar birding group – the first in more than 10 years to leave Pillar Point Harbor – encountered a similarly remarkable feathered treasure: a short-tailed albatross.
The bird is one of about 2,000 left on the planet, a survivor in a species decimated by egg harvesters and a counterproductive intuition to nest on volcanic islands. On its back was a Japanese satellite transmitter – a relic of restoration efforts off the East-Asian coast.
“This is an example of a great success story,” Chisholm said.
Jaramillo and Chisholm couldn’t venture a more specific theory than climate change to account for the unusual sightings.
The cause may be murky, but the perceived impact of the events is clear to local bird-watchers and business-minded Coastsiders.
Birders spent roughly $31 billion in 2006 on “wildlife watching,” according to a 2008 report issued by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Such statistics haven’t escaped Coastside charter boat captain Tom Mattusch, who skippered the first of last month’s seaward bird trips. The sightings could open a new avenue to fishermen in Princeton locked to the docks in the face of declining commercial fishing opportunities.
Mattusch, who sits on the Half Moon Bay Coastside Chamber of Commerce and Visitors’ Bureau Ecotourism Program Committee, says bird-watching season next year could mark a milestone for the local economy. “It’s puzzling, why aren’t (birders) using this port more? … It’s like an untapped resource here.”
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