Specialty Cruises

Each season we offer focused tours on topics of interest to our passengers. This Spring we are offering a tour on marine mammal babies, on birding, and photography. The birding cruise is good for beginners to professionals. Beginners will learn the difference between this Snowy egret and the Great egret, but professionals will sort out the confusing details of the peeps and gulls. The bird specialty tour will spend extra time with nesting species such as the egrets, gulls, and cormorants. Check out the website to get dates and time for these classes and for regular tours.

Pacific Flyway

The birds are starting to make their way North. All sorts of birds are stopping in to feed at the Elkhorn Slough "cafe" on route to return to nesting areas. The slough is packed with some very large flocks such as sandpipers, whimbrels, curlews, willets, godwits, and a variety of ducks. Other species are starting to grow fancy dress feathers for breeding time such as the fancy frilly crest feathers of the egrets. Grab your binoculars.

Colors of Spring

This time of year the birds are getting all dressed up for the breeding and nesting seasons. For example, these Caspian Terns are showing off why they are named "Caspian". The intense red beaks are named after the Caspian red sea. Soon they will have nests and chicks at Elkhorn Slough.

Bird Count 2009

We volunteer our boat and time to the annual Christmas-time bird count sponsored by the Audubon Society, for over 15 years. Every year the Moss Landing area is a top birding spot, and has a top number of bird species for the entire country. Most years Elkhorn Slough is in the top 10 and often top 5 in the nation. Always held on the First of January for our area, this years unofficial count was over 201 species in one day!

Birds and Birding at Its Best

The Fall bird migration is well underway. The numbers and variety is up! The smaller shorebirds are in very high numbers, so high that the mudflats appear to be alive and walking about. These Western Sandpipers travel great distances from Northern tundra to South America - and our Elkhorn Slough is just a rest stop along the way. They feed and fuel up here for the next leg of the journey. --- Capt

Elegant Terns

You can see the season turn with the rotation of the Terns. This photograph is of Elegant Terns that frequent Elkhorn Slough in late Summer and early Fall. Winter brings the Forster's tern, and Spring brings the Caspian Tern. Other occasional terns spotted on safari are the Least, Black, and Common terns plus the Black Skimmer. -- Capt. Yohn