Black-vented Shearwaters at Malibu Lagoon, 23 January 2022

[Posted by Chuck Almdale]

The lagoon was still open to the ocean, the tide was at a typical waning-quarter-of-the-moon intermediate level with no great fluctuation, and water flowed neither in nor out.

From the first viewpoint near the Pacific Coast Highway bridge we could see, far out over the ocean, a steady stream of seabirds flowing by from east to west. [The coast at Malibu faces south, not west.] They could be nothing other than shearwaters.

At this distance, they were little more than tiny dots in the telescope. But shearwaters fly in a very distinguishable manner, described by their name – Shearwater. They fly very low, often barely skimming the surface of the water. Usually they’re actually in the troughs between waves, barrelling along what to them looks like a long narrow valley, often out-of-sight of land-based birders. Every so often they rise up, only to quickly drop out of sight.

When there is a bit of wind, as there was this morning, they don’t need to flap much to stay aloft. The differential of wind speed at the surface, and 10-30 feet above the surface, plus the updrafts created by the wind bouncing off the wave peaks, create enough speed and uplift for them to cruise – to shear – the water.

There’s little else that flies that way – albatross are famous for it, but I’ve never seen an albatross off Malibu, and besides they’re huge compared to shearwaters and usually fly in a forward moving spiral called dynamic soaring.

Ten species of shearwater and petrel show up off our SoCal coast; as usual, some are a lot more frequent than others. I’ve seen only half of them, and all but one of those five were seen only from boats out around the Channel Islands. They generally stay well offshore, except for a few areas like Monterey Bay which has a deep water canyon.

The sole species I’ve recognizably seen from land is the relatively small Black-vented Shearwater. They nest on islands off the west coast of Baja California, and are often seen from SoCal shores, especially in the winter, when large numbers of them get up and move around.

When we see a large mass of similarly-sized shearwaters, Black-vented is almost certainly the species. But we had to get down to the beach to get as close as possible for a better look. Meanwhile there were plenty of other birds around, although the coots had mostly disappeared. They’d ranged from 130 to 360 in number for the past four months, but there were only 49 of them today. The lagoon looked almost bare.

Despite the relative barrenness of the lagoon, we had a lot of species and a lot of birds: 72 species and 2,767 birds. That second number contains a very large estimate of 1,000 Black-vented Shearwater. None of them were actually in the lagoon – no self-respecting shearwater would be caught dead that far inland, except when breeding – but there could easily have been three times that amount. I counted 925 California Gulls and there were a lot more shearwaters that that. Most of the gulls, cormorants and pelicans were standing on the exposed offshore rocks, but the gulls particularly moved around a lot.

Today was a good raptor day: Osprey, Cooper’s, Red-shouldered & Red-tailed Hawks, and a Merlin. The Merlin rocketed through, as falcons often do, so…no photo.

There were a lot of cormorants today, probably because of all the fish. All three species. Twelve Pelagic Cormorants was a lot – we’ve averaged two per appearance over the past 40-odd years.

As always, the lagoon outlet moves eastward over time. Occasionally it doubles itself, as seen here. The eastern edge of the outlet will continue to erode and the western edge – or in this case, edges – will continue to fill in, so the outlet seems to move. Eventually the whole thing fills in and usually stays closed for 4-6 months during the summer. It may come up against the riprap rocks edging Adamson House, if we get more rain and stays open long enough. If no more rain the outlet usually fills in as more sand arrives.

It was the Pelagic Cormorants that alerted me to the fact that the school of fish that attracted all the birds had moved right up next to the beach. Three Pelagics popped out of the front of a cresting wave almost simultaneously, each with a big fish sticking out of their bill. The other birds on the water also spotted this event and quickly moved in, either to steal someone’s fish or find their own. This activity brought the shearwaters close enough to photograph. They had been slowly moving closer over the past half-hour or so, but were still at least several hundred yards away, too far for decent photos. But we got lucky, and Chris Tosdevin snapped a sequence of (mostly) the same bird flying left, wheeling, then flying right.

We couldn’t find any Snowy Plovers. They were most likely on the far side of the wide outlet(s), just over the edge of the beach berm where we couldn’t seen them without trooping all the way around via the PCH bridge. By that time no one felt up to it.

Malibu Lagoon on eBird: 1/25/22 – 5569 lists, 312 species

Birds new for the season: Surf Scoter, Western Grebe, Eurasian Collared-Dove, Royal Tern, Pacific Loon, Common Loon, Black-vented Shearwater, Belted Kingfisher, Merlin, Common Raven, Tree Swallow, Oak Titmouse.

Many thanks to photographers: Lillian Johnson, Ray Juncosa & Chris Tosdevin.

The next three SMBAS scheduled field trips?: Excellent question. We’ll have to get back to you on that. (read: haven’t the foggiest)

The next SMBAS program: Important Birds of Ancient Lake Cahuilla and the Salton Sea, with Kurt Leuschner, Zoom Evening Meeting, Tuesday, 1 February 2022, 7:30 p.m.

The SMBAS 10 a.m. Parent’s & Kids Birdwalk remains canceled until further notice due to the near-impossibility of maintained proper masked social distancing with parents and small children.

Links: Unusual birds at Malibu Lagoon
9/23/02 Aerial photo of Malibu Lagoon
More recent aerial photo

Prior checklists:
2021: Jan-July,  July-Dec
2020: Jan-July, July-Dec  2019: Jan-June, July-Dec  
2018: Jan-June, July-Dec  2017: Jan-June, July-Dec
2016: Jan-June, July-Dec  2015: Jan-May, July-Dec
2014: Jan-July,  July-Dec  2013: Jan-June, July-Dec
2012: Jan-June, July-Dec 2011: Jan-June, July-Dec
2010: Jan-June, July-Dec  2009: Jan-June, July-Dec.

The 10-year comparison summaries created during the Lagoon Reconfiguration Project period, remain available—despite numerous complaints—on our Lagoon Project Bird Census Page. Very briefly summarized, the results unexpectedly indicate that avian species diversification and numbers improved slightly during the restoration period June’12-June’14.

Many thanks to Adrian Douglas, Esme Douglas, Femi Faminu, Lillian Johnson, Chris Lord and others for their contributions to this month’s checklist.

The appearance of the list below has changed slightly. I’ve added a column on the left side with numbers 1-9, keyed to the nine categories of birds at the bottom. The species are re-sequenced to agree to the California Bird Records Committee Official California Checklist, updated 15 Jan 2022. I generally do this at the start of each year.
[Chuck Almdale]

	Malibu Census 2021-22	8/22	9/26	10/24	11/28	12/26	1/23
	Temperature	68-73	63-70	54-63	57-70	54-62	61-73
	Tide Lo/Hi Height	H+4.55	L+2.52	H+5.23	L+2.35	L+2.58	L+2.04
	Tide Time	1034	0556	1105	1104	0900	0645
1	Canada Goose				10	4	2
1	Northern Shoveler			2
1	Gadwall	12		4	2	20	29
1	American Wigeon		7	4	2	10	4
1	Mallard	9	18	3	2	12	20
1	Northern Pintail				2	1	1
1	Green-winged Teal		1	5	5	15	11
1	Surf Scoter						10
1	Bufflehead				1	10	2
1	Hooded Merganser					13
1	Red-breasted Merganser	1			17	15	9
1	Ruddy Duck	2	1	5	8	13
2	Pied-billed Grebe	1	3	5	3	5	3
2	Horned Grebe					1
2	Eared Grebe			1	1
2	Western Grebe			12			30
7	Feral Pigeon	6	8	6	52	3	20
7	Eurasian Collared-Dove						1
7	Mourning Dove	3		5	1	1
8	Anna’s Hummingbird	1			1	2	2
8	Allen’s Hummingbird	3	1	3	1	4	3
2	American Coot	2	130	240	245	360	49
5	Black-bellied Plover	90	103	87	166	104	58
5	Snowy Plover	29	34	34	40	34
5	Semipalmated Plover	4	3	2
5	Killdeer	20	10	23	20	10	2
5	Whimbrel	17	8	4	12	9	8
5	Long-billed Curlew		1
5	Marbled Godwit	4	30	34	9	71	32
5	Ruddy Turnstone	8	3	6		1	6
5	Red-necked Stint	1
5	Sanderling	12	20	104	22	22	1
5	Dunlin	2		2
5	Baird’s Sandpiper	5
5	Least Sandpiper	35	12	9	3	35	12
5	Western Sandpiper	65	2	2	1		1
5	Short-billed Dowitcher	3
5	Long-billed Dowitcher		1
5	Spotted Sandpiper	2	1
5	Willet	40	14	25	34	13	15
5	Red-necked Phalarope	4
6	Bonaparte’s Gull					2	1
6	Heermann’s Gull	1	1	2	53	26	45
6	Ring-billed Gull		1	2	28	170	40
6	Western Gull	55	10	63	92	85	95
6	California Gull	4		9	515	370	925
6	Herring Gull				1		2
6	Glaucous-winged Gull	1		1		2	5
6	Least Tern	1
6	Caspian Tern	2
6	Royal Tern		13	2			5
6	Elegant Tern	1
2	Red-throated Loon					1	1
2	Pacific Loon						1
2	Common Loon						2
2	Black-vented Shearwater						1000
2	Brandt’s Cormorant			2	10	1	6
2	Double-crested Cormorant	27	35	67	52	39	45
2	Pelagic Cormorant	1	2	1	4	1	12
2	Brown Pelican	30	11	21	99	44	110
3	Great Blue Heron	4	3	3	3	4	4
3	Great Egret	4	1	3	1	7	2
3	Snowy Egret	24	14	11	4	24	6
3	Green Heron					2	1
3	Black-crowned Night-Heron	3	3	1		1	5
4	Turkey Vulture					1
4	Osprey		2		1	1	1
4	Cooper’s Hawk	1			1	2	1
4	Red-shouldered Hawk	1				1	1
4	Red-tailed Hawk				1	1	1
8	Belted Kingfisher	1					1
8	Nuttall’s Woodpecker					1
8	Downy Woodpecker					1
8	Hairy Woodpecker				1
4	Merlin		1				1
4	Peregrine Falcon		1
9	Black Phoebe	4	5	5	4	4	4
9	Say’s Phoebe		1	1
9	California Scrub-Jay	1		1		2	2
9	American Crow	4	4	6	1	7	4
9	Common Raven						1
9	Tree Swallow						2
9	No. Rough-winged Swallow	2
9	Cliff Swallow	4
9	Barn Swallow	25	3			2
9	Oak Titmouse	2					1
9	Bushtit	20			48		12
9	House Wren		1	2	1
9	Marsh Wren			2
9	Bewick’s Wren			1		4
9	Blue-gray Gnatcatcher			4	4	1
9	Ruby-crowned Kinglet			1	1
9	Wrentit	1				1
9	Hermit Thrush					1	1
9	Northern Mockingbird	1		2		1	1
9	European Starling	30	40		31	9	15
9	American Pipit		1
9	House Finch	18	7	4	18	8	8
9	Lesser Goldfinch	2		1	2	2	4
9	Dark-eyed Junco					2	4
9	White-crowned Sparrow			5	15	17	35
9	Savannah Sparrow					1
9	Song Sparrow	3	5	4	7	8	6
9	California Towhee	1		2	2	4	2
9	Spotted Towhee	1
9	Western Meadowlark		1	1
9	Great-tailed Grackle	5	1	4	3	7	1
9	Orange-crowned Warbler		1		2		1
9	Common Yellowthroat	2	5	4	5	6	3
9	Yellow-rumped Warbler			6	19	20	10
	Totals by Type	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Jan
1	Waterfowl	24	27	23	49	113	88
2	Water Birds – Other	61	181	349	414	452	1259
3	Herons, Egrets & Ibis	35	21	18	8	38	18
4	Quail & Raptors	2	4	0	3	6	5
5	Shorebirds	341	242	332	307	299	135
6	Gulls & Terns	65	25	79	689	655	1118
7	Doves	9	8	11	53	4	21
8	Other Non-Passerines	5	1	3	3	8	6
9	Passerines	126	75	56	163	107	117
	Totals Birds	668	584	871	1689	1682	2767
	Total Species	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Jan
1	Waterfowl	4	4	6	9	10	9
2	Water Birds – Other	5	5	8	7	8	11
3	Herons, Egrets & Ibis	4	4	4	3	5	5
4	Quail & Raptors	2	3	0	3	5	5
5	Shorebirds	17	14	12	9	9	9
6	Gulls & Terns	7	4	6	5	6	8
7	Doves	2	1	2	2	2	2
8	Other Non-Passerines	3	1	1	3	4	3
9	Passerines	18	13	19	16	20	20
	Totals Species – 110	62	49	58	57	69	72