I have been gone since the end of June to work in the Gulf of Mexico so Brian and the team got a few trips out in my absence...though the last trip on the 11th was following a lot of southerly wind. Having a bit of wind from the northeast on Friday, our first trip of the set, was really nice! Not only did we have nice temperatures but we had some swell rolling in from the east southeast as well thanks to Hurricane Ernesto. Even before we got to the shelf break on Friday we had a Fea's type Petrel fly right to the boat!
We were focused on a flock of birds ahead that had some Sooty Terns above and a Brown Booby 
in with some Cory's type and Audubon's Shearwaters - it must have been feeding in there with them! Just over the shelf we had a dark morph Trindade Petrel come to visit us before we even had a chum block out, what a great way to start not only the day but a two day set mid-August from Hatteras! 
Saturday, a day with a bit less wind, we found our first White-tailed Tropicbird of the year for bird trips and it really showed off for us checking out all of our "tropicbird teasers" that were out in the spread behind the boat. 
Both trips encountered excellent numbers and views of our Gulf Stream specialty the Black-capped Petrel and on Saturday we found a flock on the water with upwards of 60 individuals! Plus we saw one on Friday soaring way up high chasing a tern - not a behavior we see out there every day and super impressive. Views of both Atlantic Cory's and Scopoli's were easy to come by on both trips with some really nice shearwater flocks to sort through. Great Shearwaters were out there in low numbers with only four found on Friday and six on Saturday. Audubon's were around as well and of course they were easier to see on Saturday without as much wind. 
Sooty Terns were seen on both trips but we only had Bridled Terns on Saturday with at least eight encountered, there was a bit more flotsam around for them to perch on. 
We had good numbers of Wilson's Storm-Petrels for mid-summer but only one Band-rumped Storm-Petrel made an appearance on Friday's trip. This is the time of year they begin to become less predictable so it will be interesting to see how many we have running from Wanchese for the next week and a half. A quick glimpse of a jaeger on the shelf in the morning on Saturday was probably a Parasitic, but not seen well, and we had one first summer Pomarine Jaeger offshore of the shelf later that day. 
Red-necked Phalaropes seen well on Saturday afternoon rounded out our pelagic species list of 15! We also had some Common Terns out in the deep who followed us feeding on the chum and some Least Terns were seen offshore both days as well.
Saturday we caught a blackfin tuna and a mahi mahi then Sunday Daniel hooked a blue marlin around a palm tree trunk that had a lot of life around it plus a Bridled Tern perched on top! 
He had it to the boat in short order then we paused to catch some of the mahi mahi there as well. Definitely a full couple of days offshore from Hatteras before we take the boat up the beach to Wanchese to run some trips from Oregon Inlet for the end of the month.
Thank you so much to everyone who joined us offshore and a huge thank you to Daniel Irons for leading both trips and Sage Church for joining us to help on Saturday! All photos today are mine 🙂
~ Kate Sutherland
Species List August 16 / 17 2024
Red-necked Phalarope - 0 / 10
Semipalmated Sandpiper - 0 / 1
peep species - 0 / 1
shorebird species - 1 / 0
Pomarine Jaeger - 0 / 1
jaeger species - 0 / 1
Laughing Gull - 1 / 0
Sooty Tern - 12 / 6
Bridled Tern - 0 / 8
Least Tern - 5 / 1
Black Tern - 0 / 9
Common Tern - 6 / 14
Common / Arctic Tern - 1 / 0
Royal Tern - 4 / 2
White-tailed Tropicbird - 0 / 1
Wilson's Storm-Petrel - 52 to 57 / 83 to 85
Band-rumped Storm-Petrel - 1 / 0
Fea's type Petrel (likely Desertas) - 1 / 0
Trindade Petrel dark morph - 1 / 0
Black-capped Petrel - 68 / 125
Atlantic Cory's Shearwater - 13 / 9
Scopoli's Shearwater - 13 / 24
Cory's / Scopoli's Shearwater - 82 / 122 to 125
Great Shearwater - 4 / 6
Audubon's Shearwater - 13 / 31
Brown Booby - 1 / 0
Bottlenose Dolphin - 0 / 36 to 40
Scalloped or Carolina Hammerhead Shark - 1 / 0
Caught and released -
Blue Marlin - 0 / 1
Caught -
Blackfin Tuna - 1 / 0
Mahi mahi (Atlantic Dolphinfish) - 1 / 15
Wandering Glider - 0 / a few
Spot-wing Glider - 0 / at least one
Black Saddlebags - 0 / at least one
Black-capped Petrels!!
Wilson's Storm-Petrels
Sooty Terns - juvenile above, adult below showing dark underprimaries
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