Hydrographer Canyon: Pelagic Report

Being a pelagic birder is kinda like being part of a frat in college.  There are lots of weird rituals, the place is crazy the whole time, and there are times you question your sanity for showing up.  My wife and I did an "extreme" Pelagic out to Hydrographer Canyon in the Atlantic Ocean.  It was a 90 mile journey out there.  While I don't often do well with seasickness, this was a particularly tough sea.  Despite that, we saw some awesome birds and marine Life

An Audubon's Shearwater

Atlantic White Sided Dolphins

Cory's Shearwater

More Atlantic White Sided Dolphins with Wilson's Storm-Petrels

A Great Shearwater

Leach's Storm-Petrel

 Wilson's Storm-Petrel Feeding

A raft of Wilson's Storm-Petrels

We saw a ton of Great Shearwaters and Wilson's Storm-Petrels.  As a birder, there are certain skills that come in handy.  Many books talk about the skill of identifying birds by a couple of quick measures.  Birding on land can teach how this is a useful skill.  Pelagic birding teaches you this might be the only skill that matters.  I've taken the liberty of cropping and editing a lot of these photos for you, but that's not necessary how we experienced these birds.  They move fast while you are on a rocking fast moving boat.  So you need to try and pick up a few more quick skills like behavior and attention to detail.  The differences between some of these birds can be as simple a wing angle/length, or beak color and rump color.  Once again, add the fact that you are moving and this becomes a wonderful mental challenge.

If you can handle the sea (even if you, like me, will need medicinal assistance), Pelagic birding can be an awesome experience.  One that I will definitely do again!

A link to Pelagic Trips: http://www.neseabirds.com/pelagictripsnonne.htm

Cetaceans Seen:
Atlantic White Sided Dolphin
Bottlenose Dolphin
Common Dolphin
Risso's Dolphin
Minke Whale
Fin Whale

2013 Year Birds: 243
Red-Necked Phalarope
Audubon's Shearwater
Cory's Shearwater
Leach's Storm-Petrel
Band-Rumped Storm-Petrel

Coming Soon: A review of The Warbler Guide and Birding in Dixie (a multipart series)

Pelagic Birding

I've been on a boat before, I've seen birds before, I've even seen birds on a boat before.  However most of those boat trips have been trips to see something specific, eagles, swallows, whales, and other such things.  This weekend, the wife and I packed up and headed out to Cape Cod to take part in an 8 hour Pelagic Trip.  The Trip had the potential, for me, to bring a lot of life birds as I rarely get out into the open ocean like this.  But it also gave me the chance to see an even rarer breed... The SEABIRDERS!  They were gung ho about everything we saw and we saw some impressive stuff.  Grey Seals, Humpback Whales, Minke Whales and lots of birds!  We saw 2 Humpbacks make a bubble net rise to feast on their catch and then saw gulls and kittewakes going crazy and even darting into the whales' mouths to eat!  all while being no more than 100 ft from this!  I had to admit that while I am a frequent victim of motion sickness, I managed to sit on the front of the boat of most of the ride and had a ball seeing all the birds.  Kittewakes, Shearwaters, Jaegers and all sorts of auks make me very ready to go out again

The main thing that impressed me, after the spectacular show nature gave us, was the energy of the sea birders.  They were thrilled at every bit of nature that we could get our bins on.  Seals, Whales, didn't matter!  I think I've posted before about the encounter with 2 birders who disregarded the harbor seals sunbathing.  I was upset by their lack of interested in non-avian nature.  This time I was pleased to be surrounded by a good group of nature enthusiasts!  I've included a couple of pictures of the trip below.

 Great Shearwater

 Pomarine Jaeger

 Northern Gannet and Grey Seals

2012 Life List Update

240!