Friday 30 May 2025

It was a great day out there today with some wind, squalls, and nice flying seabirds! We started the day adding another species to the list for the spring with a young Masked Booby! While the light was challenging, most everyone on board was able to see this large sulid circling over the feeding shearwaters and diving. We had great views of just about everything we saw though views of Bridled Tern, Arctic Tern and Red-necked Phalarope were brief. A light morph Trindade Petrel flew by very frustratingly in the distance and didn't even pause over our slick. Otherwise birds gave some great views especially the Leach's and Band-rumped Storm-Petrels we saw. We did have a billfish come check out our teasers behind the boat but we didn't hook it. It was probably a White Marlin, very cool to see!

For more of the species we had out there today check out our eBird Trip Report: 30 May 2025

A big thank you to Liam Waters for helping Brian, Daniel & me lead the trip today. And thanks to everyone who joined us out there! A few photos © Kate Sutherland

Black-capped Petrels - always the stars!

What looked like one of our "little" Band-rumpeds, but in primary molt!

Token (record shot) of the Masked Booby

And finally a gorgeous Wilson's Storm-Petrel capture!

Thursday 29 May 2025

It was a nice day out there today with not too much wind...so birds were sitting around and it was challenging to recruit them to the chum! But overall we had most of the species we hoped to see and had good views of them. Arctic Terns were a highlight with eight seen over the course of the day, some first summer birds and some adults! We also counted at least 32 Portuguese Man of Wars today and had our first Pilot Whales of the season.

The eBird trip report can be found here: 29 May 2025

Thank you to Andrew Thornton for helping Brian, Daniel and me lead the trip! And thanks to everyone who joined us out there! All photos today © Kate Sutherland

A couple of images of one of our Arctic Terns in the slick just after going down for some chum!

Light form Black-capped Petrel that we found on the water

Cory's Shearwater

Great Shearwater in the slick

And we must include a Wilson's Storm-Petrel!!

One of the Scalloped / Carolina Hammerhead sharks we saw in the afternoon

And of course a couple of the many Portuguese Man of Wars we saw today!

Tuesday 27 May 2025

Well it seems the weather is going to be challenging this spring! Westerlies and then weather! But we made up for it all today with 15 pelagic species including a few new ones for the spring: Trindade Petrel, South Polar Skua, and Great Shearwater all made their first appearances! Winds were from the east for the most part all day and we had a nice low ceiling as well for most of the day...all good things for us to see some diversity out there and it worked! We'll take it since we have to weather out tomorrow (28 May) as well. All three species of storm-petrel showed well with really solid numbers of Wilson's and some great views of Leach's and both molting and non-molting Band-rumpeds. In addition to the South Polar Skuas we also saw one Pomarine Jaeger and two Long-taileds on the shelf in the afternoon. Six species of shearwater were seen over the course of the day as well: Cory's, Scopoli's, Great, Sooty, Manx, Sargasso! To gadfly petrels, of course, Black-capped & Trindade. And to round it out we had some Red-necked Phalaropes on our way back in this afternoon! We'll give you another update on Thursday when we can make it back offshore. Thanks to everyone who joined us today and a big thank you to Ed Corey for helping us lead the trip! - Kate Sutherland (all photos here today are mine also 💙)

Here is the link to the eBird trip report for the day 27 May 2025

I missed the Trindade Petrel since my hands were in gloves getting a fresh chum block ready to deploy, but when I have one I will include it here!

First South Polar Skuas of the season - earlier individual with Hatteras Village in the background!

Black-capped Petrels

We saw some crazy light blue water just over the shelf break with shearwaters and a few Black-capped Petrels over it - it was hard to tell what was going on but there were a number of little baitfish there as well. Brian said there was nothing in the bathymetry that looked interesting, but maybe some upwelling of some sort?

The shearwaters, in the order mentioned above!

Leach's feeding on the chum

Non molting and molting Band-rumpeds (presumed Grant's type for the molting individual)

And a selection of the always photogenic Wilson's Storm-Petrels!!

And my new favorite image of a Wilson's that I've taken!!

We did see another Ocean Sunfish today (Mola mola) and this one was a bit more cooperative than the one we had on the last trip!

Sunday 25 May 2025

As you can imagine with the same winds...from the west and northwest...but mostly the west...we've had some challenging days! But you don't know what's out there unless you're there, so we're always happy to be offshore to see what we can find. Today the Black-cappeds were not around like they have been, they are likely chasing the wind somewhere...we didn't have what they needed today. We still had good views of them and Cory's Shearwaters were also super cooperative! A Band-rumped Storm-Petrel came in at the end of the day and gave us some nice views. You can check out the trip report below:

25 May 2025

Today Ed Corey came to help Brian, myself, and Daniel lead the trip! Here are some photos below...all are by me so © Kate Sutherland

Thanks everyone!!!

Black-capped Petrel

Cory's Shearwaters

The presumed Chilean Devil Ray!

And of course another Portuguese Man of War set!

Saturday 24 May 2025

Another day with north wind that shifted to the west midday! It seems we're in a bit of a weather pattern here now so diversity was again a bit low today with just one gadfly petrel, three shearwaters, one storm-petrel, and one tropical tern. We did see shorebirds out there again today with Sanderlings, Semipalmated Sandpipers, and Ruddy Turnstones. Plus we had some Great Blue Herons fly by while we were offshore. Of note are our Black-capped Petrels this spring. We have seen close to or upwards of 100 each day so far since we started this stretch on 16 May! This has been really excellent and for me sends all worries about seeing more seabird species out of my mind. These usually shy seabirds have been feeding readily in the slick near the boat and regularly vocalizing! Today was no different and it was truly a treat to see these gadfly petrels zipping around the slick out there 💙

Thanks so much to everyone who joined us and to Ed Corey & Steve Backus for helping Brian, Daniel & me lead the trip! - Kate Sutherland (photos today are by me)

Trip report can be found here: 24 May 2025

Black-capped Petrels (of course!!) - feeding on a squid Daniel threw out for them (fresh frozen, no additives)

Light form individual

Wilson's Storm-Petrels

We had some of the coastal Bottlenose - Tamanend's Bottlenose Dolphins - offshore a bit this afternoon

And had a couple Portuguese Man of Wars today - this one had been blown over!