A tale of two cities - Tuesday - The return trip

Our guide decided to make the trip back more enjoyable, so once we had picked-up the other passengers back at the first stop, we headed to a small lump of rock off the coast of Santa Cruz, a home to nesting seabirds. We saw Brown Pelican, Pelagic (new species) and Brandt's Cormorants, Western Gulls and on the shoreline, a Black Oystercatcher:



In the water a Pelagic Cormorant:



And a Brant (another new species):



A wing of Brown Pelicans flew towards then past the boat - click on the pic - they're flying in formation just above the water:



We headed back to Ventura Harbour though this time the crew were pointing out some of the birds we were passing, including a raft of Surf Scoters:



Cassin's Auklet:





Xantus's Murrelet:



Rhinoceros Auklet:

Pigeon Guillemot:

Common Murre (we call them Common Guillemot):

Heerman's Gull:

Our first ever Shearwater, this a Black-vented Shearwater:

As we headed further from the Islands, the sun was setting:



Leading to some spectacular effects:

This last picture includes a new species, Black-bellied Plover, however you can only see the back of the bird, the sunlight on the water is cool though:



We really enjoyed the trip back even though we got very chilly and my mild cold overnight transformed into a full-on heavy cold, it was worth it. We thanked the crew for bringing the trip to life on the way back. We noted the other passengers had all enjoyed the show too. We were also delighted at having seen the Island Scrub-Jay, mission complete.