At the dock as we all gathered in anticipation of a day offshore, we had an incredible flight with hundreds of birds vocalizing as they flew over in the dark! The most commonly heard were Green Herons and Bobolinks...you can check out Daniel's list here if interested: MorningFlight Of course this gave us a small idea that we might find some migrants offshore!
There was already some southeasterly swell from the distant set of storms (Humberto and the developing Imelda) when we began our run to the shelf break in the morning. Skies were overcast for the most part and remained that way for most of the day plus we had some light rain. As we approached the shelf break we could see more heavy rain ahead...but Brian did his best to keep us out of the downpours! Regardless, it was one of those days with intermittent rain and challenging light. As we so often say, the seabirds really don't care about the rain and some species like our Pterodroma petrels actually love the edges of rain squalls because they always have some wind! And winged-runners do love the wind! As proof our best Black-capped Petrels for the day were along a rain band... 
And while we didn't find anything unexpected on the seabird front, we did find all of the species we hoped to see out there and saw most of them well. If you can believe it Great Shearwater was our most uncooperative species - we just saw one and it flew by mid-distance. Both Atlantic Cory's and Scopoli's Shearwaters were seen well on the shelf in the morning and Scopoli's showed well offshore, some even joining us in the slick like this one!
Our little Sargasso Shearwaters were in short supply and we didn't have a really nice look at one until close to the end of the trip, but thankfully this individual sat on the water and flew a few times as it foraged and everyone saw it well. 
The last hoped for tubenose species of the day was Wilson's Storm-Petrel...in the morning when we slowed down and began the oil drip they were super challenging to see with just a couple behind the boat and distant. As the day went on, however, we gathered a few more and when we circled back a few times we had some great views! We did also have one distant large storm-petrel that gave a Leach's vibe, but it didn't come close enough for us to see well. 
Bridled Terns were seen well with one on a piece of timber in the morning...yes...it was overcast and raining... 
There were a few out there so participants got to see this one close then study them in flight at a distance and compare them to the Sooty Terns we had pass closely in the afternoon.
Now moving on to the other species we encountered out there! As you might imagine after hearing so many this morning a Bobolink found us offshore and thought about staying with us, but ultimately it flew off to continue its search for a suitable perch in the Gulf Stream.
Species List 27 September 2025
American Golden Plover - 32
Laughing Gull - 2
Lesser Black-backed Gull - 2
Sooty Tern - 4
Bridled Tern - 7
Black Tern - 1
Common Tern - 148
Royal Tern - 6
Wilson's Storm-Petrel - 74
large storm-petrel species - 1
Black-capped Petrel - 68
Atlantic Cory's Shearwater - 12
Scopoli's Shearwater - 15
Cory's / Scopoli's - 80
Great Shearwater - 1
Sargasso Shearwater - 5
Bobolink - 1
Black and White Warbler - 1
American Redstart - 22
Cape May Warbler - 12
Blackpoll Warbler - 1
Black-throated Blue Warbler - 4
New World Warbler species - 38+
Cetacean species - a possible small whale was seen by leader Sarah Toner
Atlantic Spotted Dolphins - some participants saw a pod on the way back in the afternoon
A few images from the day!
Black-capped Petrels
Dorsal view of Scopoli's Shearwater - you can see how slender the bill is!
Sargassum with rain drops and next up the shearwater we wish was named for this brown algae and not the Sargasso Sea...!
Sargasso Shearwater
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