Pelagic Trip with San Diego Pelagics led by Paul Lehman. Actually this was a mixed raft of Least and Black Storm-Petrels found at the 30-mile bank. The two birds can be told apart by their size differences (the Least being the smallest of the two) and in flight by the wedge-shape tail of the Least versus the fork tail shape of the Black.

It was very difficult for us to get close to any of these rafts, as soon as we got to within barely binocular distance the birds would fly away. Special thanks to Guy McCaskie for making the very helpful observation that most of the birds flying away from our boat were the Least while the ones flying towards the boat were the Blacks.

ABA Code 3 bird.