Another Euro for '22 ~ 3 June 2022 by Kate Sutherland

Winds were back to our usual southwest today and forecast to shift to the west in the afternoon, we hoped it would be a good day but with few birds on the shelf and not many once we passed the shelf break we weren't sure how it would go.  There was some current out there so the waves smoothed out a bit with the wind and current moving together and we had a Band-rumped Storm-Petrel in the slick soon after we put out the chum, then Black-capped Petrels started coming in to see what we had to offer and dropping down to the slick!  So we decided to take some time to just drift around there.  We had close looks at Leach's Storm-Petrels as our Wilson's began to gather, Great, Cory's and Audubon's Shearwaters all flew through, and less than an hour after beginning our drift leader Chris Sloan spotted a small gadfly petrel coming in at 1000 on the bow!  A dark Trindade Petrel came in with the wind, checked out the chum, and then flew across the bow and away! (Todd McGrath)

It happened so quickly some of us in the stern barely caught a glimpse of the bird, but those in place on the bow had awesome views!  Chris was on fire today and less than an hour later he spotted a European Storm-Petrel that was following a Band-rumped toward the bow and into the slick!!!  This tiny stormie hung out with us for almost 25 minutes and everyone had awesome views of it feeding with the Wilson's and flying around the boat! (Kate Sutherland) 

To finish off our list we had a gorgeous adult Pomarine Jaeger come in and feed on chum behind us for almost an hour.  It was a great day out there, we'll see what we can turn up tomorrow!

Thanks so much to everyone who joined us out there and a huge thank you to our leaders Todd McGrath, Chris Sloan, Nate Dias, and Ed Corey - they all helped get everyone on the bird of the day, our little Euro!!

Species List for 3 June 2022

Pomarine Jaeger - 2

jaeger species - 1

Wilson's Storm-Petrel - 67 to 72

European Storm-Petrel - 1

Leach's Storm-Petrel - 3

Band-rumped Storm-Petrel - 12

Trindade Petrel - 1 dark morph

Black-capped Petrel - 53 to 56

Cory's Shearwater - 5

Cory's / Scopoli's Shearwater - 42

Great Shearwater - 12 to 13

Sooty Shearwater - 2

Audubon's Shearwater - 17

Sanderling - 1

Offshore Bottlenose Dolphin - 5

Loggerhead Turtle - 2

Ventral view of the Trindade Petrel by Nate Dias

A few more images of our little visitor!  top Nate Dias, followed by Chris Sloan, then Ed Corey, and the others by Kate Sutherland

Black-capped Petrels were super cooperative!  (Kate Sutherland top, Ed Corey bottom)

Leach's and Band-rumped Storm-Petrels (Kate Sutherland)

The Pomarine Jaeger that followed us for a while (Chris Sloan)

One of the Offshore Bottlenose Dolphins we saw out there (Ed Corey)