Hurricane season which begins each year 1 June and ends 30 November, is always an adventure for us on Hatteras Island! Not just because of the wind and waves associated with passing storms (or landing storms!) but because the island is just a strip of sand with one road to Hatteras Village where we dock the Stormy Petrel II...all the way at the end. This road, NC Highway 12, can be flooded even when we don't have a storm offshore...just part of life here, but some years we choose to run trips "up the beach" in the summer from Oregon Inlet instead of Hatteras Inlet. This year we chose well since NC 12 was closed to traffic until the morning of 24 August from the passage of Hurricane Erin. By the time it reopened we were at Wanchese Marina getting ready for our participants to arrive so we could head offshore! We had to cancel a few trips (19, 20, 22, 23) due to the storm and Brian, Daniel and myself (plus Mowgli the Captain's Cat, see photo below) left Hatteras on the 19th just to be certain we could make it off island!
Thankfully the owner of our rental in Wanchese let us in a day early and didn't charge for the cat! Daniel and I (see below) had time to go to Jennette's Pier in Nags Head for a seawatch as the swell came ashore from Hurricane Erin - it was so nice to see some of our scheduled participants out there and visit with old friends! Unfortunately most seabirds had moved through the day before.
24 August 2025
eBird Trip Report: 24 August 2025
Though there was still some swell on the Oregon Inlet Bar Sunday morning (24 Aug) we made it across and headed to the east! It was so nice to finally be offshore that we almost didn't mind the rain that was with us from 09:00 until about 15:00 😉 Black-capped Petrels were no where to be found out there, but we did have great views of Band-rumped Storm-Petrel!
25 August 2025
eBird Trip Report: 25 August 2025
We didn't have a trip scheduled for the 25th, but since I was in touch with so many of our participants anyhow canceling four of our trips...it wasn't too challenging to put together a group who wanted to join us if we added this date to the schedule! We had a few who even joined because the trip was open and had space so of course we hoped to find something special...but don't we always hope for that?? The first noticeable difference from yesterday was the lack of rain and lack of wind! There was still an impressive swell out there, however, and the birds were really using that to move! It was great to see Black-capped Petrels plus we finally had close views of the small Sargasso Shearwaters. And while we didn't find that Swinhoe's or Black-bellied Storm-Petrel...or the Streaked Shearwater...it was still a solid day out there! We had great views of both Bridled (pictured below) and Sooty Terns with young and heard them calling...
we also had great views of a young Long-tailed Jaeger in the afternoon, and some nice views of Red-necked Phalaropes as well! 
26 August 2025
eBird Trip Report: 26 August 2025
Part of what made this set of trips a bit challenging was that the Gulf Stream was way offshore from Oregon Inlet - it had made a turn to the east south of us and the hot water wasn't close to us at all up where we were - it was closer to Hatteras! This sea surface temperature shot from the day before this trip gives you an idea where that warm water is in relation to Oregon Inlet (yellow star on SST map):
So we had quite a run each day just to get to the Gulf Stream, it wasn't always right there at the shelf break. And on some of these days, like this one, most of the life was concentrated offshore of the shelf where we had just about 5.5 hours to spend! Black-capped Petrels were present with over 100 tallied over the course of the day and a few nice sized flocks of them on the water!! (Light form individual pictured here)
With one of these flocks was a Bermuda Petrel...a bird that Daniel saw from the top deck as it flushed ahead of us and flew directly away. The word didn't get out quickly enough for people to see it, and the birds flushed well ahead of the boat. It's always frustrating to have something like that happen. I much prefer for everyone to see everything close and well, but sometimes this is just the way it goes offshore!! Great to know it was out there, he said it looked fresh and clean so possibly a juvenile that just recently fledged from one of the burrows in Castle Harbor, Bermuda!
All of the usual suspects were out there but Wilson's were most numerous (about 150) followed by Black-capped Petrels (134, likely conservative count!), and these were followed by Black Tern with almost 120 counted! The Wilson's were super cooperative for us to make up for not finding any larger stormies! 
And the color change we had in the afternoon was absolutely gorgeous! Pictured here is a Cory's type shearwater flying on the blue side of the change.
27 August 2025
eBird Trip Report: 27 August 2025
Another day with another long run down to the south southeast, but we found a temperature break on the shelf and the current edge just offshore of there today! We were again lucky to find adult and juvenile Bridled and Sooty Terns - the former mostly near perches 
and the latter foraging with parents along some of the temperature breaks or conditions out there! 
Black-capped Petrels were the most numerous bird out there today, which is always a treat, and while they were not super close and definitely not very hungry, we had some nice resting flocks and a few made some nice passes, like this light form individual. 
Red-necked Phalaropes were also super cooperative today with over 45 on our offshore portion of the trip. We often see these in the summer and Red Phalaropes are more commonly seen on our winter trips. Sometimes we can find both in the early spring!!
We were lucky to see one Band-rumped Storm-Petrel well, and had a nice following flock of Wilson's Storm-Petrels again today. Shearwaters were around, though not in any large numbers, and as we have noticed in years past Scopoli's seem to be more numerous offshore from Hatteras Inlet than they are from Oregon Inlet. We had just over 30 Cory's type shearwaters today and even fewer Sargassos and Greats, but the encounters we had were quality! 
29 August 2025
eBird Trip Report: 29 August 2025
Days of clouds offshore kept us from being able to view a good sea surface temperature map before we left the dock...so we headed back down towards where we had been going the past couple of trips. And just a note - we had a lay day built into the schedule for the 28th, so we didn't weather out, we just didn't have a trip scheduled that day!
We hit the shelf break just after 09:00 and almost immediately had a Brown Booby fly by!
As we worked offshore we saw another flock ahead and there was a different Brown Booby in that flock that also held some Black-capped Petrels! As we focused on the booby, a small gadfly petrel was spotted up ahead! This bird finally came close to the boat and the should of "Fea's Petrel" went out!!! When I looked back at my record shots I had taken of the Brown Booby, the Fea's Petrel was visible right behind it, up high, in a few of the images!
Just a few seconds later the only birds following this large, dark sulid were Black-cappeds...seeming to escort it from the area as they sometimes do!
We hit the shelf break just after 09:00 and almost immediately had a Brown Booby fly by!
Technically Fea's Petrel is the species Pterodroma feae that breeds on the Cape Verde Islands, but only recently has this species been split from the similar Desertas Petrel Pterodroma deserta which also was previously called the Fea's Petrel. Their at sea identification is of course challenging, though many tracking studies show that Desertas Petrels (obviously nesting on the Desertas Islands near Madeira) range here while the Cape Verde Petrels range more close to home and off the coast of Africa. This individual's blocky head and stout bill coupled with the primaries not looking super fresh point towards a Desertas Petrel, which we have not seen yet this year!! So quite an excellent find and it made up for lost time staying with us for about two hours and following for ten miles!
Our other gadfly petrels, the Black-cappeds, were super cooperative today as well with almost 100 tallied and many coming close to the boat to feed on the chum! Here is one with a snack!
30 August 2025
eBird Trip Report: 30 August 2025
Today we went a little north of where we had been heading after looking at the above temperature image and seeing some nice looking water to the east of Oregon Inlet. We had a lot of birds, including Black-capped Petrels on the shelf this morning and just over the break. As we moved a bit offshore, we didn't see much to keep us out there so we went back inshore a bit to find the water that was holding a lot of those Wilson's Storm-Petrels in the morning!
It worked for us to do this back and forth today, going offshore of the shelf, then back on the shelf, back off, and finally back on for the inshore transit. Winds were light so conditions were great for spotting other wildlife as well and we had a huge (over a hundred!) group of Spinner Sharks that we caught up to and moved over, looking down you could see them stacked up below the surface! In addition to these sharks we also saw some hammerheads, either Scalloped or Carolina, and at least seven Mola mola, or Ocean Sunfish!
All of the shearwaters other than Scopoli's and a distant Sooty were quite cooperative and it was an epic day for Wilson's with hundreds around us on the shelf sections today. We caught a nice Wahoo in the morning that was large enough for us to can (!) and then I actually hooked a White Marlin in the afternoon! Total accident, Daniel just handed my the rod and we got the fish on...he reeled it in and we released it by the boat, but not before getting at least a few photos of it clearing the water!
What a beauty! While our list was strong for this trip, it was still nice to have the non-avian fauna and some shorebirds like Pectoral Sandpiper and Greater Yellowlegs, plus an American Redstart who came on the vessel, to spruce up the day! The weather got us for the final day and we had to cancel the trip on 31 August much to our dismay...but it was nice to get home to Hatteras for me and I was able to can that Wahoo!! Here is a silly time lapse video I took of finishing the first part of that task!
There are a number of thank you's for helping us get these trips out and we want to extend a warm welcome and huge kudos to Elias Markee-Ratner's for his first trips as a junior leader! He went above and beyond to help our participants see the birds and learn about what they were seeing out there plus took some spectacular photos. He joined us for the August 24, 25, and 26th trips. Local Andrew Thornton also helped out on a couple of trips and we were super lucky to have Amanda Guercio come down from Canada to help on the 27, 28, 29, and 30th! Captain Brian Patteson as always did a great job getting us out there and finding the perfect place to spend our time offshore. Daniel Irons is a force and was always looking from the top deck to see what was out there and communicate numbers to me in the stern. It is a challenge to run trips away from our home port, but we pulled it off and hope everyone enjoyed the time we had out there 💙 Thanks everyone! ~ Kate Sutherland (all photos in the post are mine)
If you are interested in the entire Blitz Totals, please check out our trip report for the Summer Blitz here: Oregon Inlet Summer 2025
