Image from the Biodiversity Heritage Library.
Contributed by Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California, Berkeley.
| www.biodiversitylibrary.org
Transcription
P. De Benedictis
1964
5
10 Jan on board "Golden Bear" off San Mateo Co., Calif.
very windy & cold on the ocean; not many
white caps but the boat is moving fast
both quite a bit. Until about 5 PM saw
about another 200 fulmars, over 75% black
or intermediate phase. Saw 1 eating a brown
jellyfish (? Chrysaora) and may have flushed
a second away from sight. Most of the light
phase birds are together so that one sees them
a lot and then mostly dark birds. Birds
moving singly, in flight or on the water,
and often can be seen looking into water.
Only interaction was a light bird which
swam broad, the dark bird eating the jelly fish.
Shortly south of Half Moon bay we went
through a large feeding assemblage of gulls
(10+ Kithwakes, a few black tips), 100+ Fulmars,
150-200 Rhinoceros Auklets, 25-30 Murres, and
a few large gulls. South of here for about half
an hour we saw Rhinoceros Auklets almost
constantly, with the ever present Fulmars,
but there then petered out and all alcids
were very scattered. Towards the end of the
day, saw almost only fulmars and most
of the gulls disappeared, except that a few
Mewes had appeared, plus a Ringtail
and a Calif. No puffins and no
Storm Petrels.