And such a finale for our Spring Blitz that was plagued by bizarre weather patterns and off timing for our usually dependable seabirds of the spring! We weathered out four days during this set: May 21, 26, 28 and 31st. But today we ended it with the spectacular species that kicked it all off on May 22 - Bermuda Petrel or Cahow!! And almost at the same time! I never would have imagined it possible that we would find another Bermuda Petrel this spring - it brings the total to six for the spring (May 20, 22, and 2 June) and five for the two participants who joined us for all of the Blitz trips this spring: Kenneth Kelly and Stephen Davies. Here we are (left to right: Stephen, Kate, Daniel, Ken, Brian) with the Bermuda flag we fly after seeing a Cahow:
This gadfly petrel was in a group of Black-capped Petrels and Daniel spotted it coming in on the port bow just before 09:00 (about the time we had the four individuals on 22 May!! but a different location, of course!) and it zipped by in the harsh light giving everyone a great view then disappeared not to be relocated or seen again though we spent time trying to see if we could entice it back with some chum!
Diversity other than than was a bit low, but just after noontime some Mesoplodons surfaced just off the port bow again! Same place they popped up yesterday! These were presumed to be Gervais' Beaked Whales (Mesoplodon europaeus), the species we typically see out here, but there was one male in the group and he had quite a large arch and tooth not quite as large as Mesoplodon densirostris (Dense Beaked Whale or Blainville's Beaked Whale) but much larger than we have even seen in M. europaeus. You can see it in the photos below. This animal was much more heavily scarred than we have ever seen. Anyhow - an exciting find and really great conditions for photographing them! We saw them around this location last year on 23 May.
You can read the eBird trip report here: 2 June 2025 - there are photos of the Cahow since I failed to get any!
Thank you so much to everyone who joined us out there for the Blitz! Our next trips are the Thursday, Friday, and Saturday (5, 6, 7 June) and we have space on all of them! Thank you also to Todd McGrath and Liam Waters for helping Brian, Daniel and me lead the trip today! All photos are © Kate Sutherland for this report except for the Bermuda Petrel that was kindly given to me by Todd McGrath 🙂 please see below:
Gervais' Beaked Whales (Mesoplodon europaeus)!
Here is the male showing the arched lower jaw and teeth at the top followed by two images of the back.
And a female showing the beak followed by images of the face and back.
Dark-faced Black-capped Petrel
Bridled Tern checking us out!
We finally had some Great Shearwaters show well today!
Wilson's were seen in higher numbers than yesterday but still not as many as we had earlier in the season!
And it's been a few days since we've seen the Portuguese Man of War, but we had a few out there today!
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