This is our 20th year of running pelagic trips aboard our own vessel, and we are fortunate to have some flexibility when it comes to running the winter trips aboard the Stormy Petrel II. We actually have a choice of ports for running the trips, but we tend to favor going out via Oregon Inlet, because we have more consistent water temperatures to the north of Diamond Shoals.
Approaching the Basnight Bridge
We don't see too many alcids in 65 to 70 degree water and that's all there was for many miles to the north of Hatteras early this month.
So we ran the first three trips from Wanchese, and we were able to find water in the mid to high 40s just off the beach up here. The downside of being "up the beach" as we say, is that we didn't have any break from the swell, as we had brisk northeasterly winds for all three trips. Fortunately, the inlet is in much better shape now than it used to be, so the bar wasn't much of an issue. The ocean was anywhere from testy to rank on all three days, but the boat handled it well and our intrepid passengers did their part, and hung on tight.
All we had to do was get outside the inlet to find a good number of alcids. We saw Razorbills and Dovekies within minutes of crossing the bar each day.
Razorbill by Daniel Irons
Dovekie by Daniel Irons
We even saw a few puffins fairly close, within a couple of miles of the beach. Try doing that off Virginia or Maryland or New Jersey!
Atlantic Puffin by Daniel Irons
The sea conditions made it hard to get anywhere quickly, so we were only able to get out past the shelf break on one day, when we had a bit of a mid morning lull in the wind. We found puffins to be most numerous 20 to 30 miles out, and we also had a very good showing of Dovekies out there on February 5th. That was the day we had the best action, just before it breezed up hard from the northeast. We found a good spot in about 40 fathoms with several Humpback Whales feeding along with lots of alcids and Bonaparte's Gulls.
Humpback Whale by Daniel Irons
After we left there, we were joined by a big pod of Atlantic Spotted Dolphins for several minutes. The few Red Phalaropes that we saw were out there in the warmer water, but there wasn't really a sharp color change in range on any of the days we were offshore, so no big numbers of phalaropes.
Red Phalaropes by Daniel Irons
We did score a Little Gull out near the whales, and we had singles near the beach on a couple of days. We rarely see kittiwakes down here in February, but we do see Little Gulls frequently.
Little Gull by Daniel Irons
Big gulls were in low numbers, and the only standout was a first winter Glaucous x Herring hybrid, the subspecies formerly known as Nelson's Gull. We didn't see many tubenoses either, just a few of the expected Manx and one out of season Great Shearwater.
Great Shearwater by Daniel Irons
There were good numbers of gannets close to the inlet the first couple of days but not so many on the 8th. The much hoped for Great Skua was MIA again, and has been on most of the trips since 2022, when the avian flu hit them hard. We haven't seen any Common Murres yet, but it seems like the Razorbills are just getting here, so hopefully we see a few before the end of the month.
Kate is down in Southern Ocean again this year, so the crew consisted of me and Danny, and a few of our guest leaders. We had Sage Church on February 2nd and 5th, Steve Backus on Feb. 5th and 8th, and Ed Corey on Feb. 8th. These guys always do a great job. It was definitely a challenging start to the season, but hopefully we'll get a break at some point before the winter is over. The bird lists and some more photos follow.
Bird List for February 2/ 5/ 8
Surf Scoter 0/ 2/ 0
Black Scoter 5/ 8/ 3
Red Phalarope 5/ 16/ 0
Atlantic Puffin 31/ 71/ 95
Razorbill 40/ 227/ 251
Dovekie 54/ 267/ 157
Little Gull 0/ 2/ 1
Bonaparte's Gull 186/ 610/ 219
Am. Herring Gull 115/ 257/ 126
Gr. Black-b. Gull 9/ 12/ 17
L. Black- b. Gull 6/ 15/ 4
Forster's Tern 0/ 1/ 0
Red- thr. Loon 16/ 83/ 10
Common Loon 28/ 20/ 5
Great Shearwater 0/ 1/ 0
Manx Shearwater 0/. 2/ 1
Brown Pelican 0/ 4/ 0
Glaucous x Am. Herring Gull one on Feb. 5th
Non Avian Wildlife
Bottlenose Dolphin 10/ 22/ 9 (all coastal form)
Atlantic Sp. Dolphin 0/ 55/ 1
Unid. Dolphin 0/ 0/ 2
Humpback Whale 0/ 10/ 0
Minke Whale 0/ 1/ 0
Loggerhead Turtle 1/ 1/ 1
Ocean Sunfish 0/ 8/ 0
Hammerhead Shark 0/ 5/ 0
Cooperative Dovekie by Brian Patteson
Dovekie by Brian Patteson
Atlantic Puffin by Daniel Irons
American Herring Gull by Daniel Irons
Great Black-backed Gull by Ed Corey
Lesser Black-backed Gull by Ed Corey
Northern Gannet by Ed Corey
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