Saturday September 25, 2021 - Kate Sutherland

Friday was a blustery day and we hoped the winds would calm enough to get offshore on Saturday...well luck was with us and Saturday morning winds were blowing about 12-17 mph from the north.  Skies were partly cloudy as we headed offshore into a sea that was calmer than expected, but still a bit choppy once we made it out of the lee of Cape Hatteras.  As we approached the shelf break, there was a temperature break with a bit warmer water on the offshore side, a Long-tailed Jaeger came zipping by on this feature and we started seeing some Cory's type shearwaters popping up around us on the horizon.  We saw our first Black-capped Petrel of the day on the shelf!  Certainly not a bad start! (Kate Sutherland)

Gulf Stream current was running a bit as we moved offshore into deeper water and the wind against the current made the seas a little larger than they had been, but this also had the birds moving, and we found our first feeding flock of shearwaters in the 0900 period.  This flock was composed of mostly Cory's type shearwaters, but we also had views of our first Great and Audubon's Shearwaters of the trip here as well.  Both were cooperative, and a few Black-capped Petrels were in the area too.  It was nice to see some Wilson's Storm-Petrels in with the feeding flocks and we were able to entice a few to follow us with our fish oil slick, allowing participants to study them for most of the day as they showed off their long legs and short, paddle-shaped wings. (Kate Sutherland)

As we continued offshore, we kept seeing feeding flocks arc up on the horizon, a couple of these were easy to keep an eye on since they had their attendant Sooty Terns flying up high over the action.  One of these groups with terns we finally caught up to and we could hear them calling as they flew overhead, quickly moving off with the shearwaters.  These feeding flocks are moving with the fish below the surface and also with the wind, so a few flocks we were unable to catch, and others we were able to just stay with for a short time before they moved along.  It was nice to see so much activity in late September, but this is a time of year when we just run a few trips, so we still have a lot to learn about what to expect!  We do tend to see more land birds and coastal species in the fall, and we had at least three young Herring Gulls and a young Lesser Black-backed Gull following us for most of the day!  A Tree Swallow and a few Barn Swallows also checked out the boat many miles from shore!  Once we put out the chum and birds started following the boat, we had really good views of Black-capped Petrels and Wilson's Storm-Petrels right behind us.  Jaegers were also around in the deep and we had a young Parasitic Jaeger fly by offshore, then a couple more cooperative Pomarine Jaegers, one of which stayed with us for over an hour! (Kate Sutherland)

The show wasn't over once we left the blue water of the Gulf Stream...we found two Red-necked Phalaropes and had a fly-by Sooty Shearwater in the cooler, greener shelf waters.  Overall an excellent day offshore!  Thanks so much to everyone who joined us making this trip possible, and a big thank you as well to Jason Denesevich for helping us lead the trips!  We're excited to make it out there three more times this fall, and we still have space on the last two trips - Oct 9(10) and 23(24) - come see what we can find!

Species List for September 25, 2021

Black-capped Petrel - 37 to 38

Cory's Shearwater - 3

Scopoli's Shearwater - 16

Cory's / Scopoli's Shearwater - 550 to 555

Great Shearwater - 78 to 79

Sooty Shearwater - 1

Audubon's Shearwater - 55

Wilson's Storm-Petrel - 43 to 44

Red-necked Phalarope - 2

Phalarope sp. - 11

Sooty Tern - 6

Sooty / Bridled Tern - 4

Pomarine Jaeger - 2

Parasitic Jaeger - 1

Long-tailed Jaeger - 1

Jaeger sp. - 2

Herring Gull - 3 to 4

Lesser Black-backed Gull - 1

Barn Swallow - 3

Tree Swallow - 1

Offshore Bottlenose Dolphin - 8 to 10

Loggerhead Turtle - 1

Cloudless Sulphur - 1

Black-capped Petrel dorsal and ventral views (Kate Sutherland).  All of the individuals we saw were sharp looking like these!  We saw both types of Black-cappeds (dark and light forms) plus a number of intermediate looking birds.

It is a lot harder to get on Scopoli's Shearwaters when they're not following us in the slick!  But we did have some nice views of them in the feeding flocks we found.  (Kate Sutherland)

And a couple of the Cory's Shearwaters we saw - I only photographed three of these out of 25 I had images of.  Pretty interesting to know that we still have a number of Scopoli's here offshore from Hatteras in late September!  (Kate Sutherland)

A dorsal view of one of the Cory's types we saw (Kate Sutherland)

And one of our young Herring Gulls!  (Kate Sutherland)

September 4 & 5, 2021 - Shearwaters and Sooty Terns - Kate Sutherland

 Labor Day Weekend looked interesting with northeasterly winds on Saturday and light and variable winds on Sunday coupled with some easterly swell, so our hopes were high as we headed out into choppy seas on Saturday!  The features for both days were shearwater flocks, these flocks were pretty easy to spot thanks to the Sooty Terns flying above most of them.  We love beehives, the term we use for feeding flocks of seabirds, because you just never know what you might find in them.  Luck was on our side and we had excellent views of a number of species in these flocks over the course of the weekend.  In today's post I think we'll walk through each day, for while they had similarities in the form of these multi-species feeding flocks, each was also unique.

Saturday we had some wind so it was choppy and we headed in our usual direction to the south southeast in the morning.  We started to see shearwaters and had a couple of Bridled Terns before we even reached the shelf break!  Then we had what looked like a young Black-capped Petrel join us to check out the fish oil slick soon after we crossed into the slope waters.  Interestingly enough, we had a couple of Black-cappeds with us at the end of the day as we approached the shelf!  Usually these sharp looking gadfly petrels are in deeper water (Kate Sutherland).

Our first feeding flock had almost 30 Sooty Terns associated with it and it was incredible to hear the young birds as they swooped over the boat with their parents nearby (youngster by Ed Corey).

We had Scopoli's, Cory's type, and Audubon's Shearwaters in this group along with some Black-capped Petrels and Wilson's Storm-Petrels.  A Band-rumped Storm-Petrel briefly visited the group but did not show very well, and an immature Pomarine Jaeger was chasing Audubon's around also!  The next flock had fewer Sooty Terns but held a couple of Great Shearwaters and a young Long-tailed Jaeger!  There were also some Red-necked Phalaropes in the area (Ed Corey).

Just before noontime we finally had a more cooperative Band-rumped Storm-Petrel and a good number of Wilson's Storm-Petrels stayed with us throughout the day!  

By Sunday the wind had fallen out and we had calm seas.  The Gulf Stream Current, which had been slack on Saturday (we even had reports of some down current), was again not running hard close to Hatteras (less than a knot), so we headed to the east!  This put us a bit north of the ground we would usually cover and we were hoping to see what type of life was up there without running the risk of being swept too far to the north by the Gulf Stream.  Again we had Cory's, Scopoli's, Cory's type (Kate Sutherland), and Audubon's Shearwaters on our way offshore.

There were also a number of Common and Black Terns around.  Just over the shelf break we began to see flocks of shearwaters on the water and feeding, mostly Cory's types, and we began to travel from flock to flock to see what we could turn up!  Again we had the Sooty Terns attending the flocks with the calling juveniles and adults, one of these flocks also had a couple of Bridled Terns and we were able to see the differences between the larger, darker Sooty Terns and the smaller Bridleds with their grayer backs, pale napes, and whiter under primaries!  We were moving from flock to flock for most of the day and had over 400 Cory's types tallied by the time we reached the shelf break again in the afternoon.  Black-capped Petrels and Wilson's Storm-Petrels were cooperative in the slick, but we didn't turn up a Band rumped on Sunday.  We did, however, find a perched adult Bridled Tern that allowed us to approach for incredible views and we saw its youngster a few minutes later checking out some schools of small flyingfishes and Balao, a cousin to the Ballyhoo!  There was a lot of life out there so of course I wanted to dip some Sargassum and see what we could find...and while a few of us were sorting through that two young Long-tailed Jaegers flew in to check us out (Ed Corey)!

It has been a really good summer for seeing them!  Two participants found a Sargassumfish in one of the dips and everyone who was interested had a chance to see it plus our other finds (more information about them in the photo section) before we put them back with their floating habitat!  We had a glimpse of a Cuvier's Beaked Whale before it sounded, a nice pod of bow riding Atlantic Spotted Dolphins, and even a Loggerhead Turtle to round out the list! 

Overall a great set of trips, and our last weekend of the year to run a couple back to back.  The rest of our fall trips are Saturdays with an obligatory weather date on Sunday and we have space on our next departure on September 18 (19)!  Thank you to everyone who joined us out there and a big thank you to our leaders, Ed Corey and Paul Laurent, for helping us out!  Ed also contributed photos for this post, thanks, Ed!! 

Species List for September 4 / 5

Black-capped Petrel - 37 to 40 / 26 to 27

Cory's Shearwater - 4 / 13

Scopoli's Shearwater - 29 / 14

Cory's / Scopoli's Shearwater - 118 / 415

Great Shearwater - 5 / 52 to 53

Audubon's Shearwater - 21 / 49

Wilson's Storm-Petrel - 86 / 93

Band-rumped Storm-Petrel - 2 to 3 / 0

Red-necked Phalarope - 11 to 12 / 2

Phalarope sp. - 0 / 1

Sooty Tern - 41 / 42 to 43

Bridled Tern - 2 / 4

Sooty / Bridled Tern - 0 / 3

Black Tern - 6 / 11

Pomarine Jaeger - 1 / 0

Long-tailed Jaeger - 1 / 2

American Redstart - 0 / 1 came aboard

Cuvier's Beaked Whale - 0 / 1

Atlantic Spotted Dolphin - 0 / 12 to 15

Silver-haired Bat - 0 / 1

Bat sp. - 0 / 1

Loggerhead Turtle - 0 / 1

Monarch - 0 / 2

Cloudless Sulphur - 3 / 7

Common Green Darner - 0 / 1

This Black-capped Petrel had very dark underwings!  (Kate Sutherland)

We saw a handful of Cory's Shearwaters over the weekend (Ed Corey)

And more Scopoli's Shearwaters, here you can see one in the center of this feeding group that is composed of Cory's types, Scopoli's, and Great Shearwaters (Kate Sutherland)

A Cory's type shearwater (Kate Sutherland)

Great Shearwaters were very cooperative near the boat! (Kate Sutherland)

As were Audubon's Shearwaters!  This was a treat because sometimes these small black and white shearwaters can be a bit boat shy.  (Ed Corey)

Audubon's are usually found around Sargassum since they feed on the creatures associated with this floating brown algae.  This one dove next to us and surfaced with some on its back! (Kate Sutherland)

A couple more views of some Sooty Terns!  Here is an adult and the underside of a juvenile (the upperparts are visible in Ed's photo in the blog text!) (Kate Sutherland)

And for comparison, here is the perched Bridled Tern from Sunday.  You can see the back is much grayer than the adult Sooty Tern pictured above.  (Kate Sutherland)

Here are a few pictures of the cooperative Atlantic Spotted Dolphins!  A typical spotted individual (top - Kate Sutherland) and a couple of typical younger individuals without spots below (Ed Corey).

It was really cool to see these schools of fish leaping from the water near the boat, but very easy to get a good photos of them!  These look like Balao (Hemiramphus balao). (Kate Sutherland)

And some young flyingfish!  (Kate Sutherland)

We found some really cool creatures in the Sargassum that we dip netted!  Here are participants Heather Levy and Peter Kleinhenz checking them out in some of our trays.  The weather has to cooperate for us to be able to do this! (Kate Sutherland)

Here is a closeup of the Sargassumfish (Histrio histrio) in some Sargassum natans, one of the species of Sargassum we commonly find offshore from Hatteras. (Kate Sutherland)

This photo has four different species, three fishes and one crab, in addition to the Sargassum natans you can see hydroids (the feathery looking creatures) and bryozoans (the crusty looking covering on the algae are their homes!) attached to the algae!  There are about 50 obligate species that are associated with Sargassum!  (Kate Sutherland)

Here is a closer look at the Sargassum Pipefish (Sygnathus pelagicus) and the Sargassum Swimming Crab (Portunus sayi) - the other creatures in the photo above are Planehead Filefish (Stephanolepis hispidus), and the Sargassumfish! (Kate Sutherland)

August 27 & 28, 2021 - Low Winds & High Fliers - Ed Corey

Tubenoses, like our petrels, storm-petrels and shearwaters, are truly masters of the wind. They’ve learned to effortlessly ride the gusts and gales to cover great distances in their search for food. However, sometimes the winds are less cooperative. So was the case for our trips this weekend! After several days with good winds out of the East and Southeast, we were left with light and variable conditions for both Friday and Saturday. When this happens, we change strategies and start looking for birds on the water or feeding activity over bait fish schools. 
The journey to the deep on Friday was quite pleasant, with low swells and patches of slick water to scan. Halfway to the shelf break, we spotted a flock of Red-necked Phalaropes working one of these slicks (Kate Sutherland). 

Though a bit jumpy at first, everyone was able to get on these “off-shorebirds," along with a pair of Audubon’s Shearwaters. A short time later, one of our spotters noticed a high flyer in the far distance, seemingly heading towards the boat. “High Flyer” is a term we use for any birds that spend time above the water, such as terns, boobies, tropicbirds or jaegers. The bird in question revealed itself to be a young Long-tailed Jaeger, passing behind us, but close enough for all passengers to see.

After leaving the continental shelf, we were able to find a few scattered birds on the water. Black-capped Petrels were shy, taking to the air well before we got close. A group of storm-petrels held mostly Wilson’s, but a Band-rumped flushed with them, showing its longer wings and more soaring flight style. Around 1pm, we came upon a loose flock of Bridled Terns, both adults and young, resting and being quite vocal. It was a treat to hear the birds calling back and forth to each other, as the parents came in to check on their offspring! (Ed Corey - adult left, juvenile right and Atlantic Tripletail swimming nearby!) 

Saturday’s trip brought similar weather, but also added a few new species for the weekend. One of our participants spotted an adult Sabine’s Gull on the water, which gave brief views as it did a lap around the boat and flew off behind us. The deeper water was a bit slower, but we were able to jump a Band-rumped and Leach’s Storm-Petrel traveling with a lone Wilson’s, a great comparison of our two larger stormies with their smaller distant cousin! (Ed Corey - Band-rumped above and Wilson's below) 

Around 10, our leaders spotted a large bird leading a ship further out, so we motored after it. Unfortunately, we were unable to catch up, but photo review afterwards showed this to be a Brown Booby! While watching the booby, we began to see quite a few tropical terns gathering and feeding ahead of us. Sooty Terns are larger and more buoyant than Bridleds, and we were able to count at least 60-70 individuals in this split flock! We were even able to see several Sooty Terns resting on the water, an uncommon but not unheard-of sight!

It took a while to get the birds interested in our slick, but eventually the storm-petrels fell in behind us. Black-capped Petrels and Band-rumped Stormies visited the gathering of Wilson’s. Though photo opportunities were not as numerous as we would hope, our participants gained confidence in identifying our Gulf Stream specialties at a distance!

~Thank you to everyone who joined us offshore for both of these trips!  Thank you also to our leaders, Ed Corey, George Armistead, and Jacob Farmer, and another thank you to Ed for writing the post, assembling the eBird lists, and contributing photos since I could not attend the trip on Saturday!!  -Kate Sutherland

Species List for August 27 / 28

Black-capped Petrel - 20 to 22 / 56 to 59

Scopoli's Shearwater - 3 / 0

Cory's / Scopoli's Shearwater - 2 / 34

Great Shearwater - 2 / 0

Audubon's Shearwater - 5 / 5

Wilson's Storm-Petrel - 88 / 78 to 81

Leach's Storm- Petrel - 0 / 1

Band-rumped Storm-Petrel - 4 / 7

Brown Booby - 0 / 1

Red-necked Phalarope - 131 to 136 / 40

shorebird sp. - 0 / 2

Sabine's Gull (adult) - 0 / 1

Sooty Tern - 5 / 111 to 118

Bridled Tern - 21 / 3

Sooty / Bridled Tern - 3 / 5

Black Tern - 10 / 3

Long-tailed Jaeger - 1 / 0

Atlantic Bottlenose Dolphin (offshore population) - 30 to 35 / 50 to 52

Black-capped Petrels from Friday's trip - dark and light forms on the water (Ed Corey) then the light individual in flight (Kate Sutherland)

It looked like both of these birds were Scopoli's Shearwaters.  Checking both underwings, one individual had a marginal amount of white on the underside of the outermost primary in one wing and close to 45% in the other, while the second individual had more than 30% in each. (Kate Sutherland)

We just had a couple of Great Shearwaters on Friday, but they were cooperative! (Kate Sutherland)

Audubon's were seen on both trips (Ed Corey)

And here is another image of Band-rumped Storm-Petrel (Ed Corey)

Red-necked Phalaropes were incredibly cooperative on Friday's trip! (Ed Corey)

And the terns!!  They were truly one of the highlights of the weekend!  

Adult and juvenile Sooty Terns (Ed Corey)

Sooty Tern with what appears to be a small flyingfish! (Ed Corey)

Adult (top) and juvenile (bottom) Bridled Terns perched (Ed Corey)

And each in flight!  (adult - top by Ed Corey, juvenile - bottom by Kate Sutherland)

This military aircraft buzzed us a few times out there on Friday - and yes, it was LOUD!  (Kate Sutherland)