After about an eight week long hiatus, we got back to running birding trips aboard the Stormy Petrel on Friday, August 2nd. Less than a week before, a nice cold front had come through and we saw quite a few seabirds before the next heat wave set in and we got a brisk steady wind from the southwest. Too much of that wind will eventually kill both the birding and the fishing here, so I wasn't expecting a whole lot when we put to sea on Friday morning. We had seen most of the usual seabird suspects while we were fishing the day before in modest numbers out near the shelf break. It was a bit bumpy heading out, but not bad. Early morning squalls had moved out, so we didn't have to worry about rain, which actually makes for good birding here if it's heading in the right direction. In an hour and a half of steaming to the break, we saw almost no birds, but the deep water was not devoid of life.
I ran the boat a little farther than usual until we saw a few shearwaters. There was a notable lack of Sargassum and charter boats offshore were not getting any trolling bites to speak of. Nevertheless, we soon saw a few Sooty Terns and we also found Cory's, Scopoli's and Audubon's Shearwaters in short order.
About 30 miles out the most common species for us was Black-capped Petrel.
It took a while for any storm-petrels to show up at the chum slick, but we had both Band-rumped and Wilson's Storm-Petrels come in at the same time. Wilson's were very scarce, continuing a trend in recent summers. Band-rumps were pretty cooperative and we had plenty of opportunities to observe them at close range, which was nice, but never guaranteed, even in summer here.
Shearwaters were generally scarce, and we only saw a couple of Great Shearwaters, but one of those came right to the boat. The majority of the the Calonectris shearwaters we saw appeared to be Scopoli's, which fits the pattern for summer out in the Gulf Stream.
With not much flotsam around and very sparse Sargassum, it's not surprising that we couldn't find a Bridled Tern. We finally did find a good perch for one, and it was holding a few fish below, but no terns. By most accounts, it was slow day for fishing out there, but we did manage to catch (and release) the only billfish of the day from Hatteras Inlet (five boats out.) It was something that we hadn't seen in years- a Longbill Spearfish- easily our most exotic find of the day.
All things considered, it was a pretty good day. We had several people aboard who had never done a trip here, and while numbers and diversity was on the low side, we had really good looks at what we needed to see and there were Black-capped Petrels cruising around for most of the day. The ride back was bumpy and rough, but not too bad. Thanks go to Daniel Irons and David Shoch for working the deck, and to Dave for providing the bird pics. We were supposed to go out again on Saturday, but sea conditions were unfit for that, so it's always a good idea to book a couple of trips.
Species seen on August 2, 2024
Sooty Tern- 13
Black Tern-4
Royal Tern- 4
Least Tern- 1
Tern sp- 1
Laughing Gull- 1
Wilson's Storm-Petrel- 19
Band-rumped Storm-Petrel- 18
Storm-Petrel sp- 5
Back-capped Petrel- 48
Cory's/Scopoli's Shearwater- 20
Cory's- 2
Scopoli's- 6
Great Shearwater- 3
Audubon's Shearwater- 10
Dolphin (mahi mahi)- 2
LONGBILL SPEARFISH- 1 released, first for us in many years
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