Two noteworthy pelagic birding events have occurred recently.
First came announcement of Debi Shearwater's retirement after 44 years of leading more than 1,400 pelagic birding trips on the West coast, mostly out of Monterey, Calif.
Then came publication of "Oceanic Birds of the World: a photo guide" by Princeton University Press. It illustrates why a good guide is essential to successful birding at sea.
Birds that are mostly black, white, and various shades of gray are difficult to identify from the deck of a moving boat. The publishers description of the book uses the phrase "unusual identification challenge…" For sure.
Authors Steven N. G. Howell and Kirk Zufelt, doing their best with text, maps, and more than 2,200 photos, have given birders an exceptional tool for identifying pelagic birds.
These are seabirds, incidentally, not shorebirds, the latter including gull species, all of which are freshwater species. There are no gulls in this book.
This is the first field guide to the world's oceanic bird species published in two decades. It is a very successful effort by two men whose time at sea probably can be measured in years.
Most of the photos were taken by Zufelt. I have been there and done that: His photos are extraordinary, use in the book equally so.