And Summer is HERE! 15 & 16 August 2025 - Kate Sutherland

After having to cancel our trips at the beginning of the month it was really nice to get out there this past weekend on the 15 and 16th! And while we didn't find anything super rare or unexpected we did have excellent views of our usual suspects like Black-capped Petrels, Sargasso Shearwater, and Band-rumped Storm-Petrel. As can be expected in the Gulf Stream, conditions were different from day to day with some unsettled sometimes rainy / squally weather on Friday then nice breezy conditions on Saturday. The Gulf Stream was a bit quirky for these trips, which actually served us well on Saturday since the wind was from the north and northeast! Without much more than a knot or so of current the seas were nice and manageable. Nothing says summer out here like shearwater flocks with Sooty Terns! And on both trips we encountered this feature. Friday a bit more running from flock to flock, then Saturday we had tubenoses in sight from the time we hit the shelf break until we got back there in the afternoon. 

As many of you know, Black-capped Petrel is our Gulf Stream specialty and while we saw them Friday and even had a nice sized flock of them on the water, they were not interested in the chum and didn't approach the boat very closely. Saturday they were a bit more cooperative, perhaps because of the wind? Or perhaps they were just a bit hungrier and thus curious? Who knows? We were just glad to have some nice views of them not only close to the boat, but flying high with their diagnostic Pterodroma flight!

Great Shearwaters were really moving on Saturday and while Friday found close to equal numbers of Cory's type and Greats, Saturday had close to a thousand Greats with just about 300 Cory's type shearwaters. It was a spectacle to watch them streaming by and really nice to compare the flight style of the shearwaters with one another and the Black-cappeds in the distance!

Cory's and Scopoli's were seen well on both trips with nice views in the shearwater flocks. Of course there are still a number of distant birds that have to be left as Cory's / Scopoli's but usually in the summer we can get some closer passes in the shearwater flocks. Pictured below is Scopoli's (top) and Cory's (bottom) from Friday and Saturday respectively.

Sargasso Shearwaters, while we see them in the Gulf Stream regularly, the summer can be a good time to encounter larger numbers and they were super cooperative for such a small shearwater on both of our trips this weekend. They were right in there feeding with the larger shearwaters in most of the flocks we found! Most shearwaters were focused on the flyingfish pushed to the surface by small tuna below! Here is a Sargasso Shearwater with quite a large one and a Sooty Tern with a smaller one. We regularly see at least four or five species of flyingfish on our trips though as many as thirteen have been recorded here over the years.

And while Sooty Terns, both adult and juvenile, were cooperative, the Bridled Terns we saw were not. Both days there were distant Bridled Terns that just didn't come close and always seemed to be traveling in the opposite direction 😑. Wilson's Storm-Petrels were seen well on both trips, though like the Black-cappeds they seemed a bit more interested in the chum on Saturday! 

Band-rumped Storm-Petrels have been a bit scarce this year but we found three on each day of this set. Friday we had one of the smaller Band-rumpeds that we see in the spring sometimes and the others looked like the more typical "Grant's" type Band-rumpeds. 

Of note as well were some Parastic Jaegers offshore on Saturday and we had a flock of Hudsonian Godwits fly by that morning as well! These large shorebirds tend to move over the ocean as they head south in the fall, it's always cool to see them out there! Last year we had some on our trips from Oregon Inlet...so we'll see if we turn any up on our trips there later this month. Overall we had a couple of solid trips even without a rarity and on Saturday a Roseate Tern in a flock with Common and Black Terns on the shelf in the afternoon was just the perfect way to cap off the set!

Thanks so much to everyone who joined us out there and a big thank you to Kevin Metcalf for joining us to help lead the trip on Saturday. Otherwise Brian Patteson, Daniel Irons and myself were aboard leading the trips as usual. All photos today are mine! Thanks for reading, everyone! ~ Kate Sutherland

eBird Trip Reports can be found here:

15 August 2025

16 August 2025

Species List for 15 / 16 August 2025

Semipalmated Plover 1 / 0

Hudsonian Godwit 0 / about 40

Red-necked Phalarope 0 / 82

Sanderling 1 / 0

White-rumped Sandpiper 1 / 0

Semipalmated Sandpiper 11 / 0

peep sp. 0 / 2

shorebird sp. 7 / 0

Parasitic Jaeger 0 / 2

Sooty Tern 75 / 54

Bridled Tern 1 / 2

Least Tern 1 / 1

Black Tern 10 / 127

Common Tern 0 / 68

Roseate Tern 0 / 1

Royal Tern 1 / 2

Wilson's Storm-Petrel 72 / 70 to 73

Band-rumped Storm-Petrel 3 / 3

Black-capped Petrel 50 / 51

Atlantic Cory's Shearwater 38 / 36

Scopoli's Shearwater 67 / 52

Cory's / Scopoli's  227 / 208

Great Shearwater 330 / 924

Sooty Shearwater 1 / 0

Sargasso Shearwater 46 / 35

Barn Swallow 1 / 4

swallow sp. 0 / 3

Yellow Warbler 1 / 0

passerine sp. 0 / 2

Offshore Bottlenose Dolphin 0 / 1

Scalloped / Carolina Hammerhead 1 / 0

marlin sp. 1 / 0

Always a great view of a Black-capped Petrel!

Cory's Shearwater with a Great Shearwater flying behind it!

The Great Shearwaters were super cooperative!

As were our Sargasso Shearwaters

It was great to see the feeding flocks of Cory's types and Great Shearwaters!

And the Wilson's Storm-Petrels were so nice to see again after a two month hiatus!

Flyingfish species - not sure which one, but one of the four-winged variety!

Summer is on the way! 13 & 14 June 2025 - by Kate Sutherland

The "Talk"

Swell from the southeast and wind from the southwest is what we had for this Friday and Saturday set. Friday winds were light...but there were a lot of birds sitting around out there, especially Black-capped Petrels! 

One flock even had a Band-rumped Storm-Petrel sitting with them! Though as you can see, these birds tend to flush well ahead of the boat when we see them on days with lighter winds.

Saturday we had a bit more wind and this was superb because the birds were really moving and we could practice identification at a distance for Great and Cory's Shearwaters then see how differently they moved next to the Black-cappeds! (Photos Black-capped top, Great Shearwater bottom) 

It was a great set of trips for those who joined both with a South Polar Skua showing well (though not close) at the end of the trip on Friday then a couple of Sooty Terns, our first for the year, Saturday morning as we came along a nice Sargassum line. Otherwise we had the usual suspects with a few gems like a quick Leach's Storm-Petrel on Friday and a Band-rumped Storm-Petrel sitting patiently on the water for us to approach on Saturday. 

There were more Cory's and Cory's type Shearwaters around on Friday then a lot of Great Shearwaters on the move Saturday!! Numbers of Sargasso Shearwaters were about the same on both trips though we really got to see them soaring on Saturday 😉. This spring has been a bit bizarre in a few ways...not as many Wilson's Storm-Petrels as we usually see and hardly any of the winter breeding "Grant's" type Band-rumped Storm-Petrels. Zero Desertas Petrels this spring and not many Cory's or Scopoli's. Really interesting, and though there have been years with similar numbers in the past, we were not closely tracking the Grant's or Cory's / Scopoli's. Wilson's did not have a strong showing this weekend either with just 39 on Friday and 21 on Saturday. 

We have encountered a number of billfish this spring, however, and this weekend was no exception with at least two Blue Marlin seen on Friday's trip here is a record shot of one!

Brian and I were super excited to welcome back our friend Hadoram Shirihai who is now living in Portugal with his wife, Reut, and daughter Teva. He has spent more time at sea than most humans and is a wealth of information about seabirds and other marine species. His Tubenose Project is hopefully coming out soon and the first volume will cover Pterodroma petrels. We are all waiting to see this masterpiece that will include our Black-capped Petrel and all of the variation we observe here! He agrees that it is likely these birds could represent more than one species that have been restricted by human activity and pushed into smaller and smaller suitable nesting locations resulting in the variation we see now. Hopefully more genetic work will soon give us a better handle on what is going on with these amazing and resilient birds!

Kate, Hadoram, and Brian on the bow of the Stormy Petrel II

Thank you so much to everyone who joined us on this set and a huge thank you to Ed Corey for helping Brian Patteson, Daniel Irons, and me (Kate Sutherland) lead the trips! All of the photos today are mine.

eBird Trip Reports can be found here:

13 June 2025

14 June 2025

Species List for 13 / 14 June 2025

South Polar Skua 1 / 0

Sooty Tern 3 / 0

Black Tern 15 / 8

Common Tern 1 / 0

Royal Tern 3 / 2

Wilson's Storm-Petrel 39 / 23

Leach's Storm-Petrel 1 / 0

Band-rumped Storm-Petrel 4 / 8

Black-capped Petrel 110 / 35

Atlantic Cory's Shearwater 12 / 8

Scopoli's Shearwater 2 / 2

Cory's / Scopoli's  22 / 25

Great Shearwater 37 / 82

Sargasso Shearwater 49 / 33

Atlantic Spotted Dolphin 0 / 11 to 12

Blue Marlin 2 / 0

Billfish species (white or sail) 1 / 0

Mahi mahi (Atlantic Dolphinfish) caught 1 / 0

One of our first Sooty Terns of the year!

The South Polar Skua - yes - just a record shot! We saw it well but it didn't come super close for us...

Most of the Black-cappeds we saw were intermediate looking but there were a handful of dark form birds like this one

Cory's Shearwater

Scopoli's Shearwater

A few Great Shearwater images! They are so wonderful to have around the boat and are totally fearless (maybe not the best trait here offshore from Hatteras...).

A Sargasso (previously known as Audubon's) Shearwater

Record shot of one of our Band-rumped Storm-Petrels

Common Tern in the slick on Friday

Some environment images from our Saturday trip!

And the cloudscape on Friday!

Tropicbirds!!! 5, 6, 7 June 2025 by Kate Sutherland

Luck was with us that we had some easterly wind and swell for this set of trips following our annual Spring Blitz! This was really evident in our luck with species that can be a bit out of range on a westerly like a tropicbird...so imagine our joy to have a White-tailed on Thursday (5 June) and a Red-billed on Friday (6 June)!! We were super lucky! Then on Saturday we had awesome encounters with Black-capped Petrels!! Which we definitely did not have on the previous two trips...easterlies seem to send Black-cappeds elsewhere...so Saturday was really the only day we had them coming to the slick and passing close to the boat! 

Thursday we had southerly winds but still some swell from southeast so we were happy to find some shearwaters on the shelf and to see our first Leach's Storm-Petrel in the 08:00 period. Wilson's Storm-Petrels were around in better numbers than we had last weekend and at 08:47 participant Brian Moldashel spotted an adult White-tailed Tropicbird hovering near the boat on the starboard side!! It proceeded to give us some incredible views as it flew around the boat checking out our slick (photo K. Sutherland)

We also had great views of Bridled Terns plus six species of shearwater were encountered over the course of the day and we also had good views of both Leach's and Band-rumped Storm-Petrels in addition to the Wilson's. A really cool sighting this afternoon were some schools of small Mahi mahi (Atlantic Dolphinfish) on the shelf! They may have been fleeing some of the Blackfin Tuna we caught there, who knows? But very cool to see (photo K. Sutherland)

On Friday winds began in the southeast in the morning then shifted around to the south, southwest and west by the time we returned to the Inlet! The swell was still from the southeast and we had shearwaters on the shelf in the morning again and we missed Manx so had five species for the day. A Band-rumped Storm-Petrel came to the slick so we set out a chum slick to try to get a better view and a young Red-billed Tropicbird came to investigate!! Not only did this bird fly around the slick, it even was so kind as to sit on the water and allow us to approach it. Brian Patteson captured these images as it took off near the boat:

What a beauty!! It was a great comparison for those who were with us on both trips to see these two species just a day apart. Shearwaters were around in much higher numbers than we had on Thursday and for most of the afternoon we had a following flock of Greats with Cory's, Scopoli's, and Sooties coming in and out. Wilson's were around in fair numbers and we saw both Leach's and Band-rumpeds again but just had brief views of Bridled Tern in the morning and a brief view of a passing Parasitic Jaeger. Arctic Terns made a nice showing, however, and this was the only trip we saw them out of this set (photo K. Sutherland).

Saturday winds were back to west southwest though we still had a bit of southeasterly swell left! This definitely brought the Black-capped Petrels back to us and once we got into them they really came in well to the chum (photo K. Sutherland)!

Everywhere you scanned on the horizon you could see Black-cappeds arcing up, we had already seen more than Thursday and Friday combined by 08:30! Otherwise we had five species of shearwater again (no Sooty today but we had a nice, cooperative Manx) with quite a few Sargasso Shearwaters and finally by the end of the day we got a nice view of Band-rumped Storm-Petrel. 

Overall a great set of trips with a total of fifteen pelagic species seen by those who joined all three trips (yes! we had a few that did!!). 

Leaders in addition to me were: Brian Patteson, Daniel Irons, Todd McGrath, Nate Dias, and Chris Sloan

Next up are Friday and Saturday this week (13 & 14 June) - we still have space if anyone wants to join us 🙂 💙 - Kate Sutherland (all photos today except for the RBTB are © Kate Sutherland)

eBird Trip reports can be found here:

5 June 2025

6 June 2025

7 June 2025

Species List for 5 / 6 / 7 June 2025

Parasitic Jaeger 0 / 1 / 0

Bridled Tern 2 / 1 / 0

Arctic Tern 0 / 3 / 0

Common Tern 0 / 4 / 2

Common / Arctic Tern 0 / 2 / 0

Red-billed Tropicbird 0 / 1 / 0

White-tailed Tropicbird 1 / 0 / 0

Wilson's Storm-Petrel 97 to 107 / 80 to 100 / 78

Leach's Storm-Petrel 14 to 15 / 2 / 0

Band-rumped Storm-Petrel 4 to 6 / 8 / 4

Black-capped Petrel 21 to 22 / 21 / 151 to 153

Atlantic Cory's Shearwater 17 / 41 / 9

Scopoli's Shearwater 2 / 7 / 2

Cory's / Scopoli's  16 / 37 / 16

Great Shearwater 19 / 97 / 15

Sooty Shearwater 1 / 3 / 0

Manx Shearwater 2 / 0 / 1

Sargasso Shearwater 49 / 65 / 81

Laughing Gull 0 / 2 / 2

Least Tern  0 / 0 / 1

Royal Tern 1 / 8 / 2

Barn Swallow 0 / 0 / 1

White Marlin 1 / 0 / 0

Billfish species (white or sail) 0 / 1 / 0

Mahi mahi (Atlantic Dolphinfish) 4 / 0 / 2

shark sp 0 / 0 / 1

And a few more images from the trips, as usual!! 

White-tailed Tropicbird

And another of the Red-billed Tropicbird by Brian Patteson

Black-capped Petrels!

Black-capped Petrel followed by Great Shearwater!

Bridled Tern 5 June 2025

Atlantic Cory's Shearwater with squid 6 June 2025

Scopoli's Shearwater 5 June 2025

Great Shearwater 5 June 2025

Great Shearwater and Black-capped Petrel in the chum! 7 June 2025

Sooty Shearwater 6 June 2025

Sargasso Shearwater (formerly known as Audubon's) 5 June2025

Wilson's Storm-Petrel 5 & 7th of June 2025

Leach's Storm-Petrel on the day we had them! 5 June 2025

Band-rumped Storm-Petrel 5 June 2025...interestingly enough we have seen mostly the "little" Band-rumpeds this spring instead of the Grant's type or winter breeders...maybe they are held up with the Desertas (Fea's) Petrels!

Arctic Tern 6 June 2025

Common Tern 6 June 2025 feeding in the slick

Micro Mahi mahi!!! Very cool to see on 5 June 2025

And one on a hook! 7 June 2025

Portuguese Man of War 6 June 2025

And some flyingfishes! Some "grasshoppers" likely Bandwing Flyers and a bog standard either Fourwing or Atlantic Flyingfish 💙