[Tweeters] Off-topic: Cruise-ship birding the Pacific coast of Mexico

[Josh Adams]

Hello Tweets,

This is a bit off-topic for Tweeters, but I don’t recall ever seeing a
write-up on cruise ship birding off the Mexican coast before so I
thought it might be interesting to share my experience.

Last week my family took a cruise on the Norwegian Joy out of Long
Beach, California with stops at Cabo San Lucas, Puerto Vallarta,
Mazatlán, and Ensenada, Mexico. For me, the major draw of this cruise
was the significant amounts of daylight hours spent at sea in prime
areas for Pelagic birding as well as the chance to see some lifers on
shore.

This was my third cruise in the Pacific where I’ve been able to do
significant amounts of pelagic birding, the other two being a spring
repositioning cruise from LA to Vancouver and an Alaskan cruise last
summer. Birding from a cruise ship can be quite enjoyable, but it is
very different from a pelagic trip on a small boat like the excellent
ones run by Westport Seabirds. A large ship allows you to use a
spotting scope which combined with the added height of the outside
floors of a cruise ship allow you to see and identify birds much, much
further than possible from a small boat with binoculars. The flipside
of this is that you’re often looking at birds that are very distant
and a very keen eye, a lot of knowledge, and more than a bit of luck
is required for identification of often similar looking seabirds. The
experience is very similar to seawatching from land with a bit of
complexity added by the ship’s movement. Like seawatching, the
experience rewards a patient observer. There are often long periods of
very few birds, and you occasionally end up with 30-minute checklists
with only a couple individual birds.

On the topic of movement, the relative stability of a large ship makes
it a more attractive option for birders who may have issues with
seasickness. I personally have been lucky enough to never have had
issues with seasickness, even in extreme circumstances, but the gentle
rolling movement of a large ship in normal seas is completely
different than a small pelagic boat and I have never heard anyone on
any of the cruises I’ve been on having issues.

We departed on Sunday evening and at dawn Monday morning we were about
75 miles west of Puerto Canoas placing us roughly on the drop off to
extremely deep waters. The first bird of the day was the trip’s only
Least Storm-Petrel, one of many lifers, which paced the boat fairly
close just before dawn. This first hour was excruciatingly slow, by
far the worst of the trip, and the only other birds seen were a
shearwater sp. and a single Northern Fulmar. After breakfast I
returned to much better birding. Red Phalaropes (identified by range,
at this time of year Red-necked should be well south of here, but on
closer birds the lighter gray backs were visible) were the most
numerous species. At one point I had probably 200+ birds visible at
one time, all flying parallel to the boat. The tubenose numbers were
still low, but diversity improved dramatically. Both Pink-footed and
Black-vented Shearwaters were seen as well as several Black-footed
Albatross. The highlight of the day was a Laysan Albatross seen very
well for several minutes. This species now breeds not far from here
(as Albatross travel goes at least) so it may have been a bird from
that colony. I only spent a few hours birding this day and spent the
rest of the day with my family, but it was quite enjoyable.

The next morning found us just offshore from Los Cabos. I didn’t see
many birds offshore in my brief time spent outside, but the number of
whales, mostly Humpbacks from what I saw, was quite impressive. For
whatever reason the Humpbacks were breaching way more than I’ve ever
seen anywhere else. Later in the day we took a sightseeing tour on a
small boat and saw both Grays and Humpbacks extremely close (too
close, frankly, presumably due to either lax local laws or
enforcement). I didn’t have any time to do any landbirding, but with
some walking or a taxi ride local specialties like Belding’s
Yellowthroat, Gray Thrasher, and Xantu’s Hummingbird should have been
possible. In the bay Brown Pelicans and Magnificent Frigatebirds were
ubiquitous.

The next dawn found us off shore of Puerto Vallarta. We weren’t
scheduled to dock until just before noon so we were slowly cruising
into port. Here I found the first Brown Booby’s of the trip as well as
my lifer Red-billed Tropicbird, which flew past very close and at eye
level.

Puerto Vallarta was the only port where I had significant birding
planned on land. I’d tried and failed to hire a guide, so I ended up
scouring eBird and finding a trail within walking distance along a
nearby river that appeared to have good bird diversity. I was relieved
to arrive and find that the trail was not only well maintained and
safe, but also extremely birdy even at midday. Lifers included
Golden-cheeked Woodpecker, Russet-crowned Motmot, Zone-tailed Hawk,
Lineated Woodpecker, Mexican Parrotlet, Blue Mockingbird, Rufus-backed
Robin, Streak-backed Oriole, Cinnamon-bellied Saltator, and
Cinnamon-rumped Seedeater and several others. My big target of the day
was Squirrel Cuckoo, a bird I’ve missed on two other trips in Mexico.
We ran into a couple photographers (one from Spokane) who said it had
indeed been seen that day and gave us a rough location. They also
found a Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl while we were with them. Alas, despite
several hours specifically looking for the Cuckoo I struck out yet
again.

The next day we arrived in Mazatlán at 7am. The family plan for the
day was to walk to the nearby lighthouse, perched on a tall hill
roughly a mile and a half away. The walk and the hill were quite birdy
and I picked up Sinaloa Crow, Orange-fronted Parakeet, Happy Wren,
Broad-billed Hummingbird and had much better views of Mexican
Parrotlets. On the nearby rocks, both Blue-footed and Brown Boobies
were distantly visible flying. I was still missing Cinnamon
Hummingbird, the statistically most common species of hummingbird
according to eBird and felt confident I could pick it up just walking
the neighborhoods around the port, but my wife was not super excited
about me wandering around alone so I’ll just have to save that species
for another trip. On the plus side, while we debated the issue a
Crested Caracara flew over us.

I spent several hours birding the Gulf of California as we left
Mazatlán. I finally got some close views of Blue-footed Boobies as we
left port. Further out I picked up my second Red-billed Tropicbird of
the trip and my lifer Masked Booby. Also seen were several
Black-vented Shearwaters, a Parasitic Jaeger, and yet more Red
Phalaropes. Alas, I was still missing Black Storm-petrel, which is
supposed to be most common in these more protected waters in winter.

Friday I spent most of the day hoping to pick up some of the species I
was still missing from the trip. Once again, the first bird of this
sea-day was a pre-dawn Storm-petrel, but the view was too brief and
the light too poor to identify it to species. Thankfully, not long
after sunrise a Black Storm-petrel paced the boat fairly close for
several minutes, allowing me to feel confident in identifying it. The
number of birds throughout the morning was low, but the species
continued to change. Multiple Pomarine Jaegers were seen, as well as
several more Masked Boobies (and possibly Nazca, I still need to
review photos). The best surprise of the day was several Cook’s
Petrels, a species which I didn’t even know was a possibility here in
February. My only other experience with this species was very poor
views on another cruise off California years ago, so getting to study
them close up next to Shearwaters was an excellent treat. Later in the
day Northern Fulmars become the most common species. According to
eBird this species is not expected off the southern Baja coast and my
records are some of the most southernly in the eastern Pacific. Other
species included more Pinked-footed Shearwaters and Black-footed
Albatross as well as a single Creveri’s Murrelet, my last lifer of the
trip.

Mammals also put on an excellent show. In the morning numerous pods of
dolphins were seen, likely Short-beaked or Long-beaked Common
Dolphins, but despite them surfacing very close to the ship at times,
I was unable to obtain good photos. Several whales were seen
throughout the day. Most were Humpback’s but a few tiny blows were
likely from a species of beaked whales. As we got further north
Guadalupe Fur Seals became quite common, laying on the surface with
their fins in the air just like Northern Fur Seals do off the
Washington coast.

As we pulled into Ensenada on the final day, there were a few
interesting birds offshore. Rhinoceros Auklet’s, Cassin’s Auklet, and
Creveri’s Murrelet were all seen along with good numbers of
Black-vented Shearwaters. The most intriguing sighting of the day, and
possibly the entire trip, were two whales seen close to the boat. I’d
seen so many Humpback whales on this trip that I didn’t even think of
ID until I realized that neither of these whales had dorsal fins.
Gray’s can show a very minimal bump, but these were all dark with
completely dark tails and obviously not Gray Whales. The only match I
can really come up with is Northern Pacific Right Whale, but that’s
one of the rarest species of whale in the world and would be an
exceptional sighting.

I’ve created trip reports for all my eBird checklists, in case anyone
wants to see everything that was seen, photos, or exact locations
visited.

Seabird Checklists:
https://ebird.org/tripreport/109512

Land Checklists:
https://ebird.org/tripreport/109515

Josh Adams
Cathcart, WA