We only ran two trips this September, our trip the weekend of the 14/15 was cancelled due to weather, but that didn't keep us from finding NINETEEN pelagic species out there on the two days we did make it offshore!! Pretty incredible diversity for us here on the east coast and this rivals some of our lists for the spring. I have included the lists for the trips at the end of this report, so check those out!
1 September 2024 Trip Report
It was nice to get back offshore from Hatteras after our trips "up the beach" from Wanchese. Three young Long-tailed Jaegers gave us a great show just after 0700 as we were still heading offshore - a sign of things to come! We found Bridled and Sooty Terns
as well as a number of shearwaters on the shelf then once we got offshore we just basically went from flock to flock - there were so many seabirds out there! Winds were from the typical direction for summer here, from the southwest, and it was blowing anywhere from 10 to 15 mph with some higher winds in the afternoon. Skies were partly cloudy to sunny.
Black-capped Petrels seemed like they would be tough at first with not a single one encountered just over the break, but then we found quite a few sitting around on the water and of course they were in the large feeding flocks as the day went on - sometimes chasing other birds like the South Polar Skuas we found in the afternoon!
Most of the large shearwaters we saw were Cory's / Scopoli's (over 2,000 of them!) and we had good views of both species in addition to Great, Sooty, Manx and Audubon's!
Manx Shearwaters have made a nice showing here this summer and we've had great views of them on a number of trips. Sooty Shearwaters can be scarce here in the summer, but we've had a couple on our trips when there are a lot of feeding flocks and Kate had a couple on a research trip east of Hatteras Island this summer as well. We were also lucky to turn up all three species of jaeger on this trip and had incredible numbers of Sooty Terns, both adult and juveniles (at least 200).
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Young Bridled Tern © Kate Sutherland
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| Black-capped Petrel © Kate Sutherland |
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| South Polar Skua © Kate Sutherland |
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| Manx Shearwater taking off © Kate Sutherland |
Leaders on this trip included: Brian Patteson, Kate Sutherland, Ed Corey and Daniel Irons
28 September 2024 Trip Report
There was certainly some swell holding on out there after Hurricane Helene kicked up some wind to the south of us as she moved north to our west. It was also a bit breezy so we had an exciting ride offshore! Skies were cloudy in the morning becoming partly cloudy as the day went on. We found the current edge just before we reached the shelf break a bit before 0900 and there were some birds around! We were busy on the shelf and offshore of the shelf today, definitely a lot of birds feeding and on the move! At 09:42 we had a Fea's Petrel come to visit the slick, it had a nice, thick bill and was not molting - it looked like a Desertas Petrel.
This species was recently in the news for utilizing tropical cyclones to forage - you can check out a brief summary here. It was crazy to see one Black-capped Petrel buzz the Desertas Petrel as it moved by our stern in the glare! But Black-cappeds do some interesting things out in the Gulf Stream and exhibit a lot of different behaviors...there were certainly a lot of them out there today and we enjoyed watching them!
It's likely we saw close to 300 individuals. A number were sitting around on the water and we had occasional pulses of ten or more in the slick, seeming to be moving together. These birds have just started to return to their colonies on Hispaniola and it seemed we saw a number that were in tandem flight. Daniel spotted a Brown Booby sailing along in front of a large dredge ship just after 10:30, we all got good looks at it as it flew up high just off the bow.
There were some offshore Bottlenose Dolphins riding the bow of this ship as well! Then, as we continued on our way, we crossed a gorgeous, organized Sargassum line and Kate spotted another Brown Booby flying right down the line towards us - so we had even better views of that one.
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| Desertas Petrel © Kate Sutherland |
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| Dark faced Black-capped Petrel © Kate Sutherland |
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| Brown Booby looking small over the bow of the dredge ship © Kate Sutherland |
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| Offshore Bottlenose Dolphins riding the bow wave © Kate Sutherland |
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| And a closer view © Kate Sutherland |
Right around noon as we examined a flock of Black-cappeds on the water it turned out there was also a Bermuda Petrel tucked in with them!! We saw it when they flushed and many participants were able to get on this smaller, more slender bodied and longer tailed gadfly petrel in the seconds it was near the boat! This is the FIFTH trip we have encountered Bermuda Petrels on this year...the most trips we have seen this gorgeous rarity on in one year!!
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| Bermuda Petrel record shot © Kate Sutherland |
It was nice to see all of the shearwaters out there - we had Cory's, Scopoli's, Great, Manx, and Audubon's - but interestingly zero Wilson's Storm-Petrels. We had awesome views of Sooty Terns, both adults and youngsters, and finally had some nice Bridled Tern views on the shelf in the afternoon. Jaegers were still out there and we had nice views of a juvenile Long-tailed Jaeger who was then chased by Black-capped Petrels! Imagine that?!
There were at least a dozen harassing this petite youngster. Pomarine Jaegers made a few appearances and were super cooperative and then we had a couple of Parasitic Jaegers that were not as cooperative. There were a lot of birds on the change in the afternoon as we headed back onto the shelf and we were very lucky to pick up an adult Sabine's Gull before we picked up speed to head in! 
While we often see immatures on these fall trips, it is rare for us to see adults, so definitely another treat.
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| Long-tailed Jaeger center with Black-capped Petrels © Kate Sutherland |
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| Sabine's Gull on the water and taking off © Kate Sutherland |
We saw offshore Bottlenose Dolphins, as mentioned, and at least one Atlantic Spotted Dolphin today. There was also a shark species that leaped out of the water on our return leg and Daniel harvested three Mahi mahi or Atlantic Dolphinfish for us as well. Pretty incredible late September trip!!
Leaders today were: Brian Patteson, Kate Sutherland, Daniel Irons, and Jesse Anderson
Species List September 1 / 28 2024
Red-necked Phalarope - 0 / 55
Lesser Yellowlegs - 1 / 0
peep species - 2 / 0
Long-tailed Jaeger - 7 / 1
Parasitic Jaeger - 2 / 2
Pomarine Jaeger - 1 / 6
jaeger species - 4 / 2
South Polar Skua - 2 / 0
Sabine's Gull - 0 / 1
Laughing Gull - 6 / 1
Herring Gull - 0 / 1
Sooty Tern - 200 / 65
Bridled Tern - 16 / 3
Sooty / Bridled Tern - 2 / 3
Black Tern - 10 / 3
Common Tern - 4 / 18
Sterna sp. 0 / 7
Sandwich Tern - 0 / 2
Royal Tern - 7 / 3
Wilson's Storm-Petrel - 22 / 0
Fea's (Desertas) Petrel - 0 / 1
Bermuda Petrel - 0 / 1
Black-capped Petrel - 98 / 273
Atlantic Cory's Shearwater - 10 / 16
Scopoli's Shearwater - 45 / 55
Cory's / Scopoli's Shearwater - 1996 / 385
Great Shearwater - 296 / 5
Sooty Shearwater - 1 / 0
Manx Shearwater - 7 / 2
Audubon's Shearwater - 180 / 276
Brown Booby - 0 / 2
Atlantic Spotted Dolphin - 0 / 1
Offshore Bottlenose Dolphin - 0 / 10 to 20
shark sp. - 0 / 1
Caught -
Mahi mahi (Atlantic Dolphinfish) - 0 / 3
Here are a few more from these epic trips 💙 Thanks so much for reading! -Kate Sutherland
Some birds on the water from 1 Sept 2024
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| Cory's type Shearwater on the water © Kate Sutherland |
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| Great Shearwater on the water © Kate Sutherland |
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| Audubon's Shearwater on the water © Kate Sutherland |
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| And a South Polar Skua on the water © Kate Sutherland |
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| Long-tailed Jaeger checking out a Scopoli's © Kate Sutherland |
And a few more images from our 28 Sept 2024 trip, we'll start with our favorites, the "little devils" or Diablotins (Black-capped Petrels) all © Kate Sutherland
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| Atlantic Cory's Shearwater © Kate Sutherland |
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| Scopoli's Shearwater dorsal view © Kate Sutherland |
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| Scopoli's Shearwater ventral view © Kate Sutherland |
We also had great views of a number of species of flyingfish on both trips! Here are a few images from 1 Sept 2024. Our bog standard fliers are the Atlantic Flyingfish and the Fourwinged Flyingfish. They look very similar in the field.
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| Atlantic or Four-winged Flyingfish © Kate Sutherland |
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| Not sure what species this is, but I have not seen one take a flip like this on reentry before! © Kate Sutherland |
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| Margined Flyingfish, with the dark pelvic fins I think this is likely an immature form of this species. © Kate Sutherland |
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