Summer Begins from Oregon Inlet! 31 July & 1 Aug Set by Kate Sutherland

Running the two out of three day sets means we have the same group for both trips, which as I've mentioned before is really wonderful for us and for our participants! It means that we've gone over the usual suspects on the first day and can spend the second looking for anything different that we might not have seen on our first day. For this set we had some breezy and choppy conditions on Friday then almost slick calm conditions on Saturday - the wind was against the Gulf Stream current for the first trip then with it for the second. Day one we saw all of our expected species really well plus we had an incredible encounter with a White-faced Storm-Petrel!! 

This individual was super cooperative and Brian was able to maneuver the Stormy Petrel II to keep it in view for eight minutes - perhaps the longest we've had one so close to the vessel! It's amazing to watch them kick off the water and move so quickly without flapping their wings - their very cool behavior is what earned them nicknames like "Kangaroo Bird" or "Pogo-stick Bird!" Band-rumped Storm-Petrels were also very cooperative on Friday and we had some close passes by the stern with the Wilson's that were in the slick. 

Sooty Terns were around in low numbers, and we just had one Bridled Tern, an adult, that came to the slick but kept its distance before finally making a nice pass near the bow!

On Saturday we decided to cross the shelf break a bit to the north of where we crossed on Friday - the shearwaters were out in force and we stayed a bit longer on the shelf to check them out! There was more life on the shelf that morning than we encountered on Friday with a couple pods of Atlantic Spotted Dolphins and a huge Ocean Sunfish who had some Cobia swimming along with it. 

Just after crossing the shelf break a White-tailed Tropicbird was spotted ahead of the boat in flight - a bit distant and flying away - but we pursued it regardless in hopes it would sit down or turn back toward us. No such luck...while it did go down to the water once it was still quite distant by the time it took off again and continued flying away. Not the most satisfying view, but the details were there if you could get it in your bins in time - the black on the outer primaries and slender body. Less than an hour after we crossed the break we were surrounded by close to a thousand shearwaters...most of which were Scopoli's! What a treat to spend time cruising around in this flock looking for anything unexpected and studying the usual suspects. There were also some Sooty Terns here plus Black-capped Petrels! It was awesome to hear the shearwaters bickering and to see them feeding naturally, not in our slick... 

Just after 10:00 we had our first encounter with beaked whales - they were Gervais' / Gulf Stream Beaked Whales (Mesoplodon europaeus)!!

Usually we see these smaller toothed whales southeast of Hatteras Inlet but as we were to learn over the course of the day - there were a few of them up here to the north! Thirty minutes later we had another small pod with different individuals and in the interim there was a Kogia species (Pygmy or Dwarf Sperm Whale) in the distance ahead. Days when the seas are calm are really great for seeing cetaceans and we had a lot more in store! A few individual Goosebeaked / Cuvier's Beaked Whales (Ziphius cavirostris) were seen near the boat

and a number of larger pods surfaced around us for the next couple of hours. The males of this species tend to be pale bodied and have whitish heads that really stand out even at a distance. Everyone on the boat who was interested had a chance to see both species well today! Certainly not a common occurance!!

Shearwaters and Black-capped Petrels were sitting around in groups almost everywhere we looked! Many Sargasso Shearwaters were sleek and fresh plumaged, likely recently fledged,

while a few looked a bit more bedraggled like you would expect from an adult who has just finished provisioning a chick for a couple of months! As the day went on the conditions just improved and the photography opportunities were amazing. In addition to the beakers there were also a number of Pilot Whales (likely Short-finned) and we even saw a small Green Turtle in the Sargassum!

We took our time heading back to the shelf break and there were still a lot of birds even after we crossed - a lot of Red-necked Phalaropes and Wilson's Storm-Petrels scattered around on the shelf. As we headed toward the inlet there was what I called a "horizontal rainbow" but what is actually called a circumhorizontal arc!

A rare phenomenon that is not a rainbow at all but instead is a type of ice halo formed by ice crystals in cirrus or cirrostratus clouds that only occurs in the summer when the sun is 58 degrees above the horizon! 

As we headed toward Oregon Inlet Daniel spotted a small boat to our starboard shooting off flares - definitely a sign of distress. So we headed to see what they needed and ended up calling the US Coast Guard for them and towing them inshore a bit to get them out of the current - their engines were overheated and they definitely didn't need to be stuck out there slowly drifting farther from help!

As we picked up to head inshore with our new follower two Leatherback Turtles surfaced - one on either side of the boat! What a perfect end to a spectacular day...in spite of our late return ;)

Thank you so much to everyone who joined us, filling the boat for this first set of summer trips from our new location at Oregon Inlet Fishing Center! Our leaders for these trips were: Brian Patteson, Daniel Irons, Sage Church and Ocean Church; all photos today were taken by me - Kate Sutherland. Thanks for reading!

The eBird Trip Report for the set can be found here: https://ebird.org/tripreport/555696

Species List for 31 July / 1 August 2026

Red-necked Phalarope 15 / 65

Solitary Sandpiper 0 / 1

Laughing Gull 1 / 0

Sooty Tern 7 / 26

Bridled Tern 1 / 0

Black Tern 28 / 10

Common Tern 10 / 0

Royal Tern 7 / 7

White-tailed Tropicbird 0 / 1

Wilson's Storm-Petrel 78 / 308

White-faced Storm-Petrel 1 / 0

Band-rumped Storm-Petrel 16 to 19 / 7 

Black-capped Petrel 72 / 148

Atlantic Cory's Shearwater 9 / 11

Scopoli's Shearwater 53 / 1430

Cory's / Scopoli's  37 / 157

Great Shearwater 129 / 324

Sargasso Shearwater 22 / 110

Barn Swallow 1 / 0

Offshore Bottlenose Dolphin 14 to 16 / 13

Atlantic Spotted Dolphin 1 / 42+

Kogia species 0 / 1

Pilot Whale (likely Short-finned) 0 / 46 to 51

Goosebeaked Whale 0 / 25 to 30

Gervais' Beaked Whale 0 / 10 to 12

Leatherback Turtle 0 / 3

Loggerhead Turtle 2 / 0

Green Turtle 0 / 1

Sea turtle species 0 / 1

Ocean Sunfish 0 / 1

Cobia 0 / 4 to 5

A few more images from the set!

White-faced Stormie

Black-capped Petrel with Sargasso Shearwater

Cory's Shearwaters - top image with Scopoli's and Greats 

Scopoli's Shearwater

Great Shearwater

Shearwaters feeding

Sargasso Shearwater

Sargasso Shearwater with Scopoli's and Great in the background

Sargasso Shearwater

Sooty Tern

Sooty Terns taking off from the water

Flyingfish species - likely Atlantic or Fourwing

Shearwaters Show Up! 4 June 2026 by Kate Sutherland

It's been a few days since we've made it offshore...the wind has shifted and we had to take a few of days off as a low pressure system moved offshore. Winds and seas were quite high on May 31, June 2, and June 3 and we headed offshore today with winds blowing from the north, but a sea that was overall a bit more organized! It was exciting to see that the Great Shearwaters are here and we had more than we've seen all season in the slick right after slowing down.

They are always so nice to watch quarreling and feeding on the chum! We tried a bit of a drift first thing in the morning and had some luck seeing Leach's and Band-rumped Storm-Petrels, though they didn't stick as well as the Wilson's and the shearwaters (we had a number of Greats and one Sooty putting on a show as they fed on some home made chum).

The Gulf Stream current wasn't super strong, thankfully, since what we had was just enough for us to maneuver in for the best views without too much spray. As we continued making our way offshore we had great views of Scopoli's and Cory's Shearwaters in the slick with the Greats. Right around noontime leader Daniel Irons spotted a feeding flock and we worked our way over to it...as we did so he said he could see what looked to be a dark Trindade Petrel in the group, feeding and chasing shearwaters!

We pulled up to the flock and sure enough there was one working the group and feeding!! It only made one close pass by us on the boat when we first arrived, coming in from the glare as they do, but we were able to observe it with this shearwater flock for almost thirty minutes!!! Wow! We have never had the opportunity to see this type of display - the shearwaters were feeding over what looked like some small tuna species and flyingfishes were airing it out everywhere. It was a beautiful place to be for a bit and everyone enjoyed having time to observe not only the Trindade Petrel, but a Manx Shearwater who was in with the flock, some Sargasso Shearwaters and compare a Sooty Shearwater to the more compact and dynamic Trindade Petrel! There was a ship passing by the flock and flying ahead of the bow? A Brown Booby!!

What a day, we thought as we begin the inshore tack!! The habitat is finally here after a few years of fairly subdued spring trips...it feels like things are back to normal for a bit.

Right after leaving the flock we began our inshore tack with the sun behind us over the slick. As we donned our sunglasses and began our watch a small gadfly petrel zipped in from the left side of the slick, checked us out for a second, then banked away - it was a Bermuda Petrel!! And we thought the day was over!!

The winds were right for it to smell the chum so we put out a little extra in hopes it would make another pass - and it did!!! Unfortunately it was right when to Air Force jets buzzed us and no one could hear us shouting or the loud speakers...but I think everyone saw it! 

Our list can be found here: https://ebird.org/tripreport/534692

Thanks to everyone who joined us offshore! Next single day trip of the season is Saturday 6 June then we have a two out of three day set.

Leaders today were: Brian Patteson, Kate Sutherland, Daniel Irons, Sage Church, and Scott Peterson

Black-capped Petrels - today I didn't see any dark form birds, just light ones...though we saw only about ten individuals all day

Cory's Shearwater

Scopoli's Shearwater

Sooty Shearwater

Band-rumped Storm-Petrel

Leach's

And finally some Wilson's feeding on Daniel's chum creation :)

Spring Blitz Day 11 - 30 May 2026 by Kate Sutherland

And the Hatteras Gulf Stream delivered again!! We had an amazing day out there and we didn't really expect it with the wind blowing from the west southwest, but we were out there and it happened! In one hour this morning we had five other gadfly petrels of two species in addition to our usual Black-capped Petrels! I said it was mind blowing ;) You can read about it in our eBird trip report here: https://ebird.org/tripreport/532289 but I can also give you a quick rundown in this post!

In less than an hour we had three Desertas Petrels and two Trindade Petrels come to visit the Stormy Petrel II with our Black-cappeds! Then we had another Desertas Petrel join us just before noon. As we headed back inshore with weather coming we had our first Roseate Tern offshore of the spring and also our first Brown Booby as well! The latter spent at least thirty minutes chasing and eating flyingfishes near the boat! Our trip on the 31st was cancelled due to weather...but that's okay because this was the trip to end the Blitz on!!

Thanks so much to everyone who joined us for this epic eleven day run! And thank you so much to our leaders...today we had Brian Patteson, Daniel Irons, Todd McGrath, Chris Sloan and John Tsortos. Now fingers crossed for the rest of our Spring Seabirding Trips! - Kate

A few Desertas Petrel captures from today

The Trindade Petrels

What looked to be a juvie light form Black-capped Petrel feeding in the slick

The Brown Booby on the shelf

And a Wilson's Storm-Petrel with a wave