Fourteen pelagic species over two days in early May is not uncommon since we have a number of migrating seabirds at this time of year, but we were pleasantly surprised to have two really solid days with the Bermuda High over us! Usually multiple days of southwesterly or southerly winds will tend to make things a bit more stagnant here in the Gulf Stream so we were hopeful a front might come through for these trips. We need not have worried, however, because Friday we were greeted by Black-capped Petrels and Wilson's Storm-Petrels just offshore of the shelf break and Saturday we were similarly successful!
A brief view of a distant dark morph Trindade Petrel on Friday was a bit frustrating, but it was good to know there was one out there! Last year we didn't see a White-tailed Tropicbird until August on our trips and then we only had four for the entire year...this year we've already seen two on fishing trips and we had one gorgeous adult on Saturday! 
If this is a species you're looking for, 2025 might be a good year for them if this is any indication. Another surprise offshore were a couple of Brown Boobies around a cargo ship - an immature bird was following the ship and while Daniel had seen it in the distance, we couldn't find it once the ship was closer...one of our participants spotted it trailing the ship and as we looked we realized there were actually two individuals! A nice find for early May, though there have been a few around nearshore this year already and they seem to be much more common even farther north than they were in past years.
Everything else we found offshore this weekend we hoped to see out there, but Black-capped Petrels were especially impressive with some hungry individuals on Saturday who came right to the boat giving us impressive views of their bicolored feet which are rarely seen unless they are coming to check out some food on the slick. 
Some even passed almost right over the stern of the boat, too close for photos! Wilson's Storm-Petrels were also quite close and we had some incredible photo-ops for these small visitors from the Southern Hemisphere. They have just finished breeding and most individuals we saw were fresh juveniles on their way to enjoy the northern summer! We were hopeful we would find Leach's Storm-Petrels out there and we did have a couple on Friday that didn't show very well, then one brief visit by one in the slick on Saturday. This bird was a bit more cooperative than our Friday individuals so most of our participants had a brief, but good view as it flew in with the noticeably smaller and shorter-winged Wilson's. I was a bit surprised to see so few shearwaters, but it is a bit early...so feel lucky that we had brief views of Sargasso Shearwater (Audubon's) on both trips. 
And was a bit relieved to have a nice view of Manx Shearwater and one Atlantic Cory's on Saturday! Phew!
The other species we saw offshore are ones that we hope to see on these early spring sets, the adult jaegers and Arctic Terns on their way north! We were not disappointed and had really nice views of Pomarine and Long-tailed Jaegers on both trips with just a quick, close fly-by of an adult Parasitic on Friday. While we only had a handful of Poms on Friday, we had two that stayed with us for a couple of hours loyally following the boat and coming quite close to feed on the frozen chum in the slick. 
Saturday we had double digit Poms including some with really nice, long tails and one dark morph! Long-tailed Jaegers were pretty cooperative on both trips and one on Saturday could be seen back in the slick harassing Wilson's Storm-Petrels, as they are known to do!! While we didn't have a nice pass by an Arctic Tern on Friday, we did have one less than satisfying view on our drift Saturday followed by one that came right to the boat that afternoon and flew around for awhile with three Common Terns - a really nice comparison for us! 
A huge thank you to everyone who joined us for this set, it is challenging to recruit enough people to run in late April and early May, so we appreciate you helping us to get out there! Our leaders were just the bare minimum for these trips - Brian Patteson, Daniel Irons and myself! All photos in the post were taken by me so © Kate Sutherland
eBird Trip Reports can be found here:
Species List for 2 / 3 May 2025
Red-necked Phalarope 0 / 26
Long-tailed Jaeger 2 / 2
Parasitic Jaeger 1 / 0
Pomarine Jaeger 3 to 4 / 11 to 12
Arctic Tern 0 / 2
Common Tern 13 / 27
Common / Arctic Tern 1 / 7
White-tailed Tropicbird 0 / 1
Common Loon 4 / 1
Wilson's Storm-Petrel 147 to 152 / 93 to 103
Leach's Storm-Petrel 2 / 1
Black-capped Petrel 78 to 79 / 70
Atlantic Cory's Shearwater 0 / 1
Manx Shearwater 0 / 1
Sargasso Shearwater 6 / 5
Brown Booby 0 / 2
Black-bellied Plover 2 / 0
Least Tern 2 / 0
Sandwich Tern 2 / 0
Barn Swallow 0 / 1
Atlantic Spotted Dolphin 8 to 10 / 3
Portuguese Man of War 1 / 0
A few more images of Black-capped Petrels, light form top and dark form below
Wilson's Storm-Petrels were super cooperative!
Pomarine Jaegers
Red-necked Phalarope
Arctic (top) and Common (bottom) Terns
