Spring Blitz Day 5 - 24 May 2026 by Kate Sutherland

I think epic is a good word to describe today - we have never had four species of gadfly petrel and two tropicbirds on one of our trips. An excellent and unique day - but as we always say the best days for seabirds are those that are challenging for humans!! And today that was true ;) Brian had an idea about where we might find the birds today and he was 100% right. Seas were big today but certainly not anything we hadn't done before in search of seabirds and definitely not the biggest seas we've been seabirding in but they were a challenge for many (as tends to be the case here offshore from Hatteras!).

It was excellent that the leaders got to split up the sightings with Brent Stephenson spotting the Desertas Petrel first thing then I spotted the Red-billed Tropicbird, Daniel the Cahow (Bermuda Petrel), Ed the first Trindade Petrel then Daniel again for the second one. Off duty leader Sage Church was luckily with us today and spotted the White-tailed Tropicbird on the shelf this afternoon! Today we had Junior Leader Matthew Rice with us for his first trip helping as a spotter and he certainly had his hands full helping people get on the birds! Overall I would say an incredibly successful trip! And I'm a bit exhausted...so a few photos from the day.

Trip report and photos can be found here: https://ebird.org/tripreport/528575

Thanks so much to our leaders today: Brian Patteson, myself, Daniel Irons, Ed Corey, Brent Stephenson and Matthew Rice!

Rarities in Order...

Second dark morph Trindade Petrel by Ed Corey

No photos of the White-tailed Tropicbird!

Spring Blitz Day 4 - 23 May 2026 by Kate Sutherland

And another epic day offshore from Hatteras, NC! It's almost like Hatteras doesn't want us to leave...or is giving us a good send off...! For me it's a bit bittersweet to move up to Oregon Inlet since we won't likely see many of the Gervais Beaked Whales (Mesoplodon europaeus) up there so it was really amazing to see one today breaching a few times right next to the boat! Thank you to Ed Corey for letting us use his photo of the one we saw today!

There was a nice swell coming in from the east / northeast all day and birds tend to ride the swell...so we were quite happy to find a lot of birds offshore and a number of feeding flocks. The best came in the afternoon less than an hour before we got back to the shelf break. A bit after 13:00 a Desertas Petrel was spotted in the slick and zipped through. As we searched for it all of the sudden there was a light morph Trindade Petrel right next to us! Yes! That's right, we had three species of Pterodroma around the boat at the same time!! We already had some Black-capped Petrels following us in the slick and about fifteen more popped in right then. Pandemonium ensued and it was hard to know where to look because of course the Desertas and Trindade Petrel were not flying together...and to make it more confusing for people there were Black-capped Petrels seemingly everywhere in the harsh, midday light. But it's a challenge I'll take any day because I mean what seabirder wouldn't??! 

You can check out our trip report for the totals and more photos here: https://ebird.org/tripreport/527950

And here are a few of the gadflies we saw today: (Desertas Petrel, Trindade Petrel, Black-capped Petrels)

And a Black-capped Petrel giving a Long-tailed Jaeger a chase!

Spring Blitz Day 3 - 22 May 2026 by Kate Sutherland

What an incredible day offshore! Certainly not a thought that crossed my mind when the rain began this morning...and it seemed to just stick with us most of the day. Sometimes this is what we have, though, and like we've said in the past - these birds don't have houses out in the open ocean - it's just where they live. And they don't really mind the rain. We ended up with thirteen pelagic species for the day which is always possible in the spring, but not always something we can attain. Birds of the day were a Cahow or Bermuda Petrel (Pterodroma cahow) and a Masked Booby!! Check out our eBird trip report for other species and the totals for the day here: https://ebird.org/tripreport/527285

*Our friend Rob Fanning who joined us today made it to 700 with the Bermuda Petrel & Masked Booby!!! Congrats, Rob!!

Here is a record shot of the Cahow

We also caught a Round Scale Spearfish, which we call a Hatchet Marlin here in Hatteras, and is something we rarely see so was quite a treat! Here are a few images by leader Ed Corey:

And because we saw a Cahow we flew the Bermuda Flag and for the Hatchet Marlin we flew an upside down White Marlin flag (closest thing we had!) meaning we released it (right side up would mean we killed it). Thanks to leader Brent Stephenson for this image

It was great to see some Leach's and Wilson's in the rain! A few photos I took today follow - Leach's on top followed by the smaller Wilson's

It's cool to see the rain beaded up on these birds!

Spring Blitz Day 2 - 21 May 2026 by Kate Sutherland

WOW! What a day! We had some southerly wind and a few rain squalls offshore today but were so rewarded in seabirds. With a close Trindade Petrel and White-tailed Tropicbird the rest of the birds could have just missed the boat all together but instead we rounded out the day with fifteen pelagic species! Here are a few images and the full list and eBird trip report are linked here: https://ebird.org/tripreport/526778

Thanks so much to everyone who joined us! Leaders today were Brian Patteson, myself, Daniel Irons, and Brent Stephenson

Trindade Petrel

A couple of dark form Black-capped Petrels (dorsal / ventral for each individual)

And a really cool series of Wilson's Storm-Petrels

Spring Blitz Day 1 - 20 May 2026 by Kate Sutherland

Our first day is complete and the weather looks good for us to get in the next many trips, which is great! It's been awhile since we've had a lucky spring for weather it seems. Today we found our first Great Shearwater of the season and had excellent views of it as it flew right by the boat on the shelf in the morning. Offshore we were lucky to find three Arctic Terns and at least one of them came right over us. 

Some years we're lucky and we see the False Killer Whales, or Pseudorca crassidens, in the spring but they don't always coincide with a bird trip. Today we had a small pod and one individual came in to bow ride as they will do - what cool, acrobatic, and fast predators! So while we always are hoping we'll find a rare gadfly out there, sometimes the bird of the day is something entirely different. 

Plus we had a group of Wilson's Storm-Petrels leave the slick for some natural food prey item this afternoon offshore of the shelf break! They were diving completely underwater to try to get pieces and while we saw it under the water...we have no idea what it was! Here is a Wilson's with a piece of it, a couple foraging over it, and the best we could do to capture it underwater.

 

And because they are some of our favorite birds, here is a light form Black-capped Petrel from today:

And a Wilson's showing off its feet that match the Sargassum ;)

For the list today please check out our eBird trip report: https://ebird.org/tripreport/526273 As we've done in the past we'll just post a few photos here and link the report for the totals. We'll see how well I keep up this year - as many of you know I can get a bit exhausted close to the end of our run and there might just be some photos and a link! Thanks to our leaders today - Brian Patteson, Daniel Irons, and Brent Stephenson. And thanks for reading!! Kate Sutherland