Excellent conditions offshore Friday and Saturday gave us high expectations, but the bar was that we would find a fourth White-faced Storm-Petrel for a fourth week in a row, and we did that on Saturday morning at 09:00! What more could one ask for? Honestly? Nothing!
We should start at the beginning because Friday's trip was no slouch...
Three small Loggerhead Turtles joined us for the trip offshore to be released in the Gulf Stream. 
It took a bit of time to find a location that wasn't too close to feeding seabirds or Bottlenose Dolphins, but there was gorgeous Gulf Stream water on the shelf near the shelf break and it had some nice patches of Sargassum (the floating brown algae we find offshore) for them to use for a bit of camouflage. Another notable non-avian sighting on Friday was a Great Hammerhead! Not something we typically see on our trips, more often it's the Scalloped or Carolina Hammerheads.
Seabirds were around us all the time while we were offshore of the shelf break and we had great views of everything we saw except for an uncooperative Sooty Shearwater that flew across the bow directly into the sun glare and a Parasitic Jaeger we saw ahead of us harassing Sooty Terns snd shearwaters. Black-capped Petrels were around in good numbers and this was the first trip we didn't see any light form individuals...but we are starting to see some recently fledged birds, and that's always exciting since these birds have a lot of challenges where they next on Hispaniola.
Juvenile Sargasso Shearwaters are also showing up so their numbers are increasing offshore here right now - another species with struggles on their nesting islands, so again nice to see some youngsters making it to sea! This is part of why summer can be so much fun here...we're just beginning to see the young of the year showing up with our first juvenile Bridled Terns
and Long-tailed Jaegers seen this weekend as well. While we didn't see many Cory's Shearwaters on Friday, we did see a lot of Scopoli's and most of them were super cooperative. Band-rumped Storm-Petrels tend to decline in number this time of year but we still had at least a couple close to the boat!
The bird of the day for many, though, was a subadult Masked Booby spotted by participant Jeffrey Turner a little after 12:30.
In addition to the spectacular seabird show on Friday we also had some encounters with at least two groups of beaked whales - the first were Goose-beaked (aka Cuvier's Beaked) Whales and one individual that surfaced after the larger pod dove put on quite a nice show for us right next to the boat! This male is in the catalog kept by Duke Marine Lab and was first recorded in 2017, tagged in 2019 and last seen in 2021. 
Now, on to Saturday...the day that will hopefully be remembered long into the future as the day Daniel Irons found both Cape Verde and Wedge-tailed Shearwater! We gathered in the pouring rain outside of the shop at Oregon Inlet Fishing Center as strong thunderstorms moved by. There were more offshore, but the rain let up for us to board and Brian was able to keep us out of the worst of it as we headed toward the shelf break. Shifting winds always make us hopeful and believe it or not rain and thunderstorms can make for an incredibly productive day offshore - unsettled weather gets things moving. And it was a busy morning on the shelf with a lot of shearwaters including good numbers of Sargasso
and a few Atlantic Cory's in with the Scopoli's Shearwaters. We even had one Black-capped Petrel sail by before we reached the deeper water...which honestly comes quickly here east of Hatteras Island, more of a drop than a slope like we have south of Hatteras Inlet. There was still some lightning around as we slowed to tack offshore with the fish oil and the Wilson's began showing up in the slick. An immature Brown Booby came in from the bow and flew away quickly down the slick, we turned to relocate it but it was gone. Wilson's were pouring in and we easily had over 100 that had joined us in just a short time...Black-capped Petrels were arcing on the horizon...the breeze was up with the squalls around us...so we decided to slow down and put out more chum. Earlier than we would usually do so, but we wanted to take advantage of the conditions. And sure enough! A White-faced Storm-Petrel showed up on the slick!!
Less than ten minutes later a dark morph Trindade Petrel came to the slick!! Holy seabirds!
The wind had shifted a little to the north west and it was like magic. We had four species of shearwater, Black-capped Petrels, Band-rumped and Wilson's Storm-Petrels, a young Long-tailed Jaeger, plus Sooty and Bridled Terns all before picking up from the drift about an hour later.
Tacking offshore we continued to have good numbers of birds around us at all times. We witnessed an adult Bridled Tern feeding its offspring as the youngster sat on the sea! This is a first, while we regularly see this happen with Sooty Terns, we have never in all our combined years offshore seen a Bridled Tern sitting on the water! A nice Pomarine Jaeger came to the slick
and stuck with us for awhile despite being dogged by a persistent light form Black-capped Petrel! Another Brown Booby, this one an adult, was seen flying along with a ship that passed us a bit distant. We worked offshore then back in toward the current edges we had crossed to the south in the morning. As we headed toward some feeding shearwaters and terns another dark morph Trindade Petrel came to visit us!
A little extra chum convinced it to check us out and it make a few really nice passes before heading away ahead of us to chase a Sooty Tern! Another behavior that we've not often seen out here, but we did have a Trindade Petrel chasing shearwaters this spring in a feeding flock.
Winds fell out for the most part as we got closer to the shelf break in the afternoon, though still in deep water, those rips and current edges were looking productive for feeding flocks. As we headed toward one of them Brian spotted a juvenile Brown Booby sitting in the middle of the flock - this bird was pretty cooperative and everyone had great views as it picked up an flew away from us.
Brian started to follow it but Daniel called in on the headset that he'd seen an interesting shearwater flying that landed on the water with a few other shearwaters just off the port bow. It looked good for Cape Verde Shearwater...because it was a Cape Verde Shearwater!! The shout quickly went out on the loudspeaker and the bird flew as we all watched it fly to the right,
then bank to the left, then fly away from us on the starboard bow. The chase was on and we were able to relocate it with a flock of Scopoli's Shearwaters before it flew again and kept going. We lost sight of it...but didn't lose it at all, actually. This is the third, well documented, sighting of Cape Verde Shearwater for North America! The first was offshore from Hatteras in 2004, the next offshore from Massachusetts in 2022, and now this...our record in 2026! Everyone was absolutely buzzing as we finished up our time offshore of the shelf break. This individual was molting and I'm thinking it could be a bird that fledged last year. The feather wear looks like a good fit for that - super exciting!
It was about 13:20 when we crossed back onto the shelf and there were still quite a few shearwaters and Black Terns around as we picked up speed to head back to Oregon Inlet. It was raining a little, but Daniel and Sage both stayed out on deck to keep an eye out for birds to add to our inshore leg as I began the task of adding the numbers for the day and getting the species sorted. Less than an hour later a call came on the headset from Daniel up on the top deck - "It looks like there's a Wedge-tailed Shearwater out there around 2 o'clock!!" Brian and I looked at each other - holy shit! We quickly got on the bird, a light morph...really one of the only ones out there...and got everyone out on deck. Brian maneuvered us so that we got closer to the bird and it really came to check us out, flying across the bow and close to the boat for at least ten minutes!!
It was still in view for almost another ten minutes!! We all just stayed out there and watched. Minds blown. What a day. A totally unbelievable day. It is very unlikely that these two species will ever again be seen on the same trip. Another one for the record books.
Thanks so much to everyone who joined us out there making these trips possible! And a huge thank you to our leaders today - Daniel Irons and Sage Church - both of them seriously deserved to be aboard for this trip. Daniel is a part of our Seabirding family now and has been on more trips than anyone other than Brian & myself. And Sage was one of the first to take advantage of our junior leader program over ten years ago - he's put in the time. Thanks to Brian for his excellent piloting skills, as usual! Photos in this post were all taken by me - Kate Sutherland
Species List for 21 / 22 August 2026
Red-necked Phalarope 4 / 6
Ruddy Turnstone 0 / 8
Least Sandpiper 1 / 1
Semipalmated Sandpiper 12 / 13
Long-tailed Jaeger 0 / 2
Parasitic Jaeger 1 / 0
Pomarine Jaeger 0 / 1
Laughing Gull 1 / 4
Sooty Tern 56 / 85
Bridled Tern 11 / 16
Black Tern 53 / 66
Common Tern 5 / 0
Royal Tern 2 / 3
Wilson's Storm-Petrel 138 / 391
White-faced Storm-Petrel 0 / 1
Band-rumped Storm-Petrel 2 / 4
Trindade Petrel 0 / 2 dark morph
Black-capped Petrel 53 / 43
Atlantic Cory's Shearwater 11 / 23
Scopoli's Shearwater 142 / 94
Cory's / Scopoli's 144 / 200
**Cape Verde Shearwater 0 / 1
Great Shearwater 23 / 40
Wedge-tailed Shearwater 0 / 1 light morph
Sooty Shearwater 1 / 0
Sargasso Shearwater 84 / 72
Masked Booby 1 / 0
Brown Booby 0 / 3
Barn Swallow 0 / 2
peep sp 15 / 3
shorebird sp 0 / 10
tern sp 4 / 0
Empidonax sp 1 / 0
Offshore Bottlenose Dolphin 55 / 12
Atlantic Spotted Dolphin 95 to 115 / 6
Short-finned Pilot Whale 40 to 50 / 30 to 40
Goose-beaked Whale 6 / 0
beaked whale sp 2 / 0
sea turtle sp 1 / 0
Great Hammerhead Shark 1 / 0
hammerhead sp 0 / 1
Mako Shark (prob) 0 / 1
small shark sp 0 / 1
Ocean Sunfish (Mola mola) 0 / 2
