San Diego, CA 5/3 - 5/8/2025

      Last week my younger daughter, wife and I took a trip out to San Diego.  We wanted to follow up on a whale watching trip we took there last year.  In February 2024, we had a great time seeing several gray whales and a few hundred common dolphins.  We went out in May this year because we were told that is when we could see blue whales.  Unfortunately, after booking our flights and stay there we learned that June through July is actually the best blue whale season.  We kept our plans anyway and headed west.  What we also learned post-booking is that May is called Gray May in San Diego.  Yup, a marine layer from the Pacific Ocean forms over the coast creating mostly cool, overcast and moist conditions. 

Left, Children’s pool and seal haul out at La Jolla Cove.  Right, ground cover draping the cliff sides at La Jolla Cove.  © S. Weiss

The gray May conditions might have affected our whale watching trip.  We went out on Monday morning after a passing rain.  The boat, a pre-owned Navy Seal inflatable boat, headed out in five-foot swells.  Under better conditions, this boat would be ideal.  The boat is fast, easier to maneuver and can put you at sea level with the marine life.  The 12-mile jaunt out to deep water didn’t bother me as I have been out in much worse conditions, but as for my wife, daughter and the other passengers the ride was very bumpy.  Conditions grew better as we went further out, but there were no whales to be had that day.  We did have a pod of offshore bottlenose dolphins entertain us with some acrobatics and bow riding.  We also had a large ocean sunfish, or mola mola, milling around.  I did get to see some sooty shearwaters and a couple of western alcids that I couldn’t identify.  The moving boat made it nearly impossible to photograph the birds.

Despite the whiff on whales, we did get breaks of sunshine and were able to enjoy our vacation.  We visited places like La Jolla, Del Mar, Carlsbad and dined in Little Italy and Laguna Beach.  I was even able to get away a few times to do some birding in the area.  For the trip, I managed to see 94 bird species, 38 of which were western specialties.  Three of the 38 species are not American Birding Associations (ABA) countable and listed as either provisional or escapee by eBird.  The top birding hotspots that I visited were Famosa Slough, San Diego River Mudflats at Robb Field, La Jolla Cove area and the Tijuana River Valley Bird &  Butterfly Garden. 

Sunset at Laguna Beach.  © S. Weiss

Despite the name of the last hotspot, I did not see a single butterfly at the garden.  As a matter of fact, I only saw one butterfly during my entire time in San Diego.  There was plenty of habitat around for them so I don’t know if it had to do with the gray weather.  As for the birds, I missed two that I had hope for, hermit warbler and MacGillivray’s warbler.  I did pick up two other new life birds, Lazuli bunting and Bell’s vireo.  I had the vireo singing from some brush and recorded its voice, but was unable to get it to pop into view.  I had a northern red bishop and Swinhoe’s white-eye which I thought were countable in California, but the ABA and eBird say otherwise, as was northern cardinal.  Some of the other birds I saw out there that I most likely will not see back in New Jersey were:  Anna’s and Allen’s hummingbirds; black oystercatchers; long-billed curlews; wandering tattlers; western, California and Heermann’s gulls; elegant terns; western grebes; Brandt’s cormorants; near breeding plumaged Pacific loon; red-crowned amazons; western wood-pewees; western flycatchers; black and Say’s phoebes; Cassin’s and western kingbirds; Hutton’s vireo; California scrub-jays; bushtits; wrentit; Bewick’s wren; California thrasher; California and spotted towhees; lesser goldfinches; hooded orioles; western tanagers; black-headed grosbeaks, and the Oregon subspecies of dark-eyed juncos.

Left, Lazuli Bunting.  Right, Northern red bishop.  © S. Weiss

Left, elegant terns.  Right, Say's phoebe.  © S. Weiss

Left, Swinhoe's white-eye.  Right, bushtit.  © S. Weiss

Left, wandering tattler.  Right, Allen's hummingbird.  © S. Weiss

Left, hooded oriole.  Right, red-crowned Amazon.  © S. Weiss

Besides the birds and (lack of) butterflies and whales, there was some other wildlife around that I got to see.  California ground squirrels were quite abundant, and I saw a couple of desert cottontails.  I found two types of lizards, western fence lizards and a western side-blotched lizard.  The latter has an interesting way of competing with other members of its species when breeding.  There are three types of males of this lizard based on the color of their throats: blue, yellow or orange.  They each have different techniques to compete for females in what is often considered similar to a game of rock-paper-scissors.  So, blues beat out the yellows; the yellows beat out the oranges, and the oranges beat out the blues.

Left, California ground squirrel.  Right, desert cottontail.  © S. Weiss

Western side-blotched lizard.  © S. Weiss

Lastly, I saw literally thousands of By-the-Wind Sailors, or velella velella, washed up on the beach in Carlsbad.  We also saw hundreds of them out on the water during our whale watch excursion.  By-the-wind sailors are kind of like jellyfish, but they aren’t jellyfish.  They are actually more like Portuguese Man O’Wars.  They are both hydrozoans that are incapable of self-propulsion and use sail-like membranes to travel the ocean at the will of the wind.

By-the wind sailors.  © S. Weiss