PHOTO SALON: COOK'S PETREL'S OFF THE CALIFORNIA COAST | 
FACING PAGE: The pelagic waters off California have been 
crisscrossed for decades, but each year produces remarkable 
new discoveries. Veteran California seabirders noted that 
the 2009 phenomenon with Cook's Petrels increased their 
personal total records from "a handful" to "hundreds" in just 
a few trips. The image at top is a composite image of a sin- 
gle bird photographed 25 July in Santa Barbara County wa- 
ters; it shows nicely the typical flight behavior of a Cook's 
Petrel traveling in moderate winds. At bottom left is a bird 
(one of 35) off Monterey 21 August, and at bottom right, 
one in Santa Barbara County waters 25 July. Photographs 
by Bill Schmoker, Don Doolittle, and Todd McGrath. 
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California may be unique among U. S. states in carefully segregating 
records of birds offshore by county. In 2009, Cook's Petrel was recorded 
in ocean waters of at least seven counties; some of these counties had 
few prior records of the species, and indeed, in the hundreds of trips 
conducted off Monterey, the species had not previously been recorded 
inside Monterey Bay. Although the final count of Cook's Petrel records 
from 2009 is not known, at least 700 were reported through 19 Octo- 
ber. These images, from top to bottom, were taken 25 July in Santa 
Barbara County waters, 6 August in Monterey County vraters, and 12 
August over Bodega Canyon, Sonoma County. Photographs by Martin 
Myers, Monte M. Taylor, and Larry Sansone. 
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VOLUME 63 (2009) 
NUMBER 4 
671 
