Terry and Judy enjoying the north jetty. Last Friday, 20 September, I had the opportunity to show Judy and Terry (from Chicago, IL) around the north spit of Humboldt Bay for a 1/2 day of birding. We got started around 9:00 a.m. and drove out to the north jetty of Humboldt Bay, one of the best locations in Humboldt County to do seawatches and see the West Coast rocky shorebirds like Black Turnstone, Wandering Tattler, and Surfbird. We also visited some of the famed migrant traps on the north spit of Humboldt Bay in an effort to find landbirds of interest.
We arrived at the jetty around 9:40 a.m. and, due to the first major fall storm set to arrive shortly, the ocean swell was pretty big (around 7-9 ft) and the whole jetty and the waters east of it were full of surfers hoping to catch one of the big waves that were coming in. I told Terry and Judy that these were the most surfers I had ever seen at this spot as the whole parking area was full from the 30-40 of them present here! High tide was scheduled around 12:50 and we walked out quickly to reach the tip while taking a couple of minutes to enjoy some SURF SCOTERS, PELAGIC CORMORANTS and our first BLACK TURNSTONE (lifer for Judy) of the morning. Since the tide was coming up most of the rocky shorebirds were already in roost mode and were grouped together at the north end of the jetty. Here we had perfect looks at more BLACK TURNSTONES, Judy's lifer SURFBIRDS and WANDERING TATTLERS.
We arrived at the jetty around 9:40 a.m. and, due to the first major fall storm set to arrive shortly, the ocean swell was pretty big (around 7-9 ft) and the whole jetty and the waters east of it were full of surfers hoping to catch one of the big waves that were coming in. I told Terry and Judy that these were the most surfers I had ever seen at this spot as the whole parking area was full from the 30-40 of them present here! High tide was scheduled around 12:50 and we walked out quickly to reach the tip while taking a couple of minutes to enjoy some SURF SCOTERS, PELAGIC CORMORANTS and our first BLACK TURNSTONE (lifer for Judy) of the morning. Since the tide was coming up most of the rocky shorebirds were already in roost mode and were grouped together at the north end of the jetty. Here we had perfect looks at more BLACK TURNSTONES, Judy's lifer SURFBIRDS and WANDERING TATTLERS.
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