Spring Blitz Day 4 - 23 May 2026 by Kate Sutherland

And another epic day offshore from Hatteras, NC! It's almost like Hatteras doesn't want us to leave...or is giving us a good send off...! For me it's a bit bittersweet to move up to Oregon Inlet since we won't likely see many of the Gervais Beaked Whales (Mesoplodon europaeus) up there so it was really amazing to see one today breaching a few times right next to the boat! Thank you to Ed Corey for letting us use his photo of the one we saw today!

There was a nice swell coming in from the east / northeast all day and birds tend to ride the swell...so we were quite happy to find a lot of birds offshore and a number of feeding flocks. The best came in the afternoon less than an hour before we got back to the shelf break. A bit after 13:00 a Desertas Petrel was spotted in the slick and zipped through. As we searched for it all of the sudden there was a light morph Trindade Petrel right next to us! Yes! That's right, we had three species of Pterodroma around the boat at the same time!! We already had some Black-capped Petrels following us in the slick and about fifteen more popped in right then. Pandemonium ensued and it was hard to know where to look because of course the Desertas and Trindade Petrel were not flying together...and to make it more confusing for people there were Black-capped Petrels seemingly everywhere in the harsh, midday light. But it's a challenge I'll take any day because I mean what seabirder wouldn't??! 

You can check out our trip report for the totals and more photos here: https://ebird.org/tripreport/527950

And here are a few of the gadflies we saw today: (Desertas Petrel, Trindade Petrel, Black-capped Petrels)

And a Black-capped Petrel giving a Long-tailed Jaeger a chase!

Spring Blitz Day 3 - 22 May 2026 by Kate Sutherland

What an incredible day offshore! Certainly not a thought that crossed my mind when the rain began this morning...and it seemed to just stick with us most of the day. Sometimes this is what we have, though, and like we've said in the past - these birds don't have houses out in the open ocean - it's just where they live. And they don't really mind the rain. We ended up with thirteen pelagic species for the day which is always possible in the spring, but not always something we can attain. Birds of the day were a Cahow or Bermuda Petrel (Pterodroma cahow) and a Masked Booby!! Check out our eBird trip report for other species and the totals for the day here: https://ebird.org/tripreport/527285

*Our friend Rob Fanning who joined us today made it to 700 with the Bermuda Petrel & Masked Booby!!! Congrats, Rob!!

Here is a record shot of the Cahow

We also caught a Round Scale Spearfish, which we call a Hatchet Marlin here in Hatteras, and is something we rarely see so was quite a treat! Here are a few images by leader Ed Corey:

And because we saw a Cahow we flew the Bermuda Flag and for the Hatchet Marlin we flew an upside down White Marlin flag (closest thing we had!) meaning we released it (right side up would mean we killed it). Thanks to leader Brent Stephenson for this image

It was great to see some Leach's and Wilson's in the rain! A few photos I took today follow - Leach's on top followed by the smaller Wilson's

It's cool to see the rain beaded up on these birds!

Spring Blitz Day 2 - 21 May 2026 by Kate Sutherland

WOW! What a day! We had some southerly wind and a few rain squalls offshore today but were so rewarded in seabirds. With a close Trindade Petrel and White-tailed Tropicbird the rest of the birds could have just missed the boat all together but instead we rounded out the day with fifteen pelagic species! Here are a few images and the full list and eBird trip report are linked here: https://ebird.org/tripreport/526778

Thanks so much to everyone who joined us! Leaders today were Brian Patteson, myself, Daniel Irons, and Brent Stephenson

Trindade Petrel

A couple of dark form Black-capped Petrels (dorsal / ventral for each individual)

And a really cool series of Wilson's Storm-Petrels

Spring Blitz Day 1 - 20 May 2026 by Kate Sutherland

Our first day is complete and the weather looks good for us to get in the next many trips, which is great! It's been awhile since we've had a lucky spring for weather it seems. Today we found our first Great Shearwater of the season and had excellent views of it as it flew right by the boat on the shelf in the morning. Offshore we were lucky to find three Arctic Terns and at least one of them came right over us. 

Some years we're lucky and we see the False Killer Whales, or Pseudorca crassidens, in the spring but they don't always coincide with a bird trip. Today we had a small pod and one individual came in to bow ride as they will do - what cool, acrobatic, and fast predators! So while we always are hoping we'll find a rare gadfly out there, sometimes the bird of the day is something entirely different. 

Plus we had a group of Wilson's Storm-Petrels leave the slick for some natural food prey item this afternoon offshore of the shelf break! They were diving completely underwater to try to get pieces and while we saw it under the water...we have no idea what it was! Here is a Wilson's with a piece of it, a couple foraging over it, and the best we could do to capture it underwater.

 

And because they are some of our favorite birds, here is a light form Black-capped Petrel from today:

And a Wilson's showing off its feet that match the Sargassum ;)

For the list today please check out our eBird trip report: https://ebird.org/tripreport/526273 As we've done in the past we'll just post a few photos here and link the report for the totals. We'll see how well I keep up this year - as many of you know I can get a bit exhausted close to the end of our run and there might just be some photos and a link! Thanks to our leaders today - Brian Patteson, Daniel Irons, and Brent Stephenson. And thanks for reading!! Kate Sutherland

And Just Like That, It's Spring! 16 & 17 May 2026 by Kate Sutherland

Another successful set for Seabirding and a good introduction to the spring! Overall we had good diversity / low numbers of individuals on both trips which is to be expected at this time of year. Winds were southerly or southwesterly both days with a little more wind Sunday morning than all day Saturday. The Gulf Stream was swift so we covered quite a bit of ground as we worked our way offshore each day! Ten species of tubenosed seabirds plus a near adult Masked Booby, Bridled Tern, and Pomarine Jaeger is certainly a great list for a couple of days mid-May and at least for me, the slower pace is worth the diversity!

Our last set in late April found better numbers of Black-capped Petrels, but our signature species was still out there showing off for us this weekend! We also had a quick glimpse of Desertas Petrel (previously lumped as Fea's Petrel which now is technically the Cape Verde Petrel - read our blog post from last year if you're not up to date on this here ) on Saturday and a distant, dark morph Trindade Petrel on Sunday's trip to round out our Pterodroma sightings! We saw both Scopoli's and Cory's well, one right after the other on Sunday so everyone got the feel for the differences in these two cryptic species.

A few distant Sooty Shearwaters on Saturday with much better views on Sunday. The little Sargasso (or as we like to call them, Sargassum) Shearwaters were in short supply but we had one foraging in what we wish was its namesake on Saturday, plucking a Plane-head Filefish from the floating brown algae! (photo Dave Shoch)

While Black-cappeds were around and did give us some nice views, the bird of the set had to be Band-rumped Storm-Petrel! We had a couple on Saturday including at least one "little" Band-rump then on Sunday there were at least a dozen tallied! They came in nicely to the chum and made some really close passes so that everyone could get acquainted with these larger stormies. We mostly saw the winter breeders who are just beginning to molt their primaries (photo by Dave Shoch), 

though there were a few nonmolting individuals documented as well. Leach's were a bit more standoffish with three seen over the set but none came very close to the boat. Wilson's Storm-Petrels, while not super numerous, were present and came close each trip for us to check out their feeding style 

and gorgeous yellow webbing on their feet.

Saturday morning on our way offshore that Masked Booby came up behind us and as we slowed it made an excellent pass! A single Bridled Tern was also seen that morning though it was offshore of the shelf break. On Sunday participant John Groskopf spotted a gorgeous adult Pomarine Jaeger making a beeline for something that we couldn't see - it wasn't super close, but the bulk and nice spoon-tail gave it away and many were quick enough to see it before it powered out of sight.

Marine mammals showed well on Sunday's trip with a pod of Offshore Bottlenose Dolphins coming quite close to check us out, one was even spyhopping, and some Pilot Whales (likely Short-finned) out there in the deep. This one had quite a small calf with it when it came by the boat, but for the most part they were spread out over a wide area!

Inshore in the morning we had a small group of Atlantic Spotted Dolphins riding the wake for a bit before peeling away. Saturday was good for fish and we caught one Wahoo in the morning on the fast troll then two Mahi mahi (aka Atlantic Dolphinfish) offshore. 

Overall it was a great set with great participants! Thanks everyone for joining us and bringing your enthusiasm and a big thank you to Dave Shoch for coming to help Brian, Daniel, and I lead the trips! Photos today are mine unless they are labelled otherwise ;)

We just did one eBird trip report for the set: https://ebird.org/tripreport/525524

Species List for 16 / 17 May 2026

Pomarine Jaeger 0 / 1

Bridled Tern 1 / 0

Black Tern 0 / 4

Common Tern 0 / 4

Common Loon 2 / 2

Wilson's Storm-Petrel 32 / 47 to 62

Leach's Storm-Petrel 2 / 1

Band-rumped Storm-Petrel 2 / 12 to 15

Trindade Petrel 0 / 1 dark morph

Desertas Petrel 1 / 0

Black-capped Petrel 58 to 61 / 31

Atlantic Cory's Shearwater 4 / 1

Scopoli's Shearwater 0 / 1

Cory's / Scopoli's 8 / 6

Sooty Shearwater 4 / 4

Sargasso Shearwater 6 / 4

Northern Gannet 0 / 1

Masked Booby 1 / 0

Semipalmated Sandpiper 2 / 0

Laughing Gull 1 / 0

Eastern Kingbird 1 / 0

Barn Swallow 7 / 2

Atlantic Spotted Dolphin 0 / 4 to 5

Offshore Bottlenose Dolphin 0 / 21

Pilot Whale (likely Short-finned) 0 / about 15

Portuguese Man of War 0 / 1

Wahoo 1 / 0

Mahi mahi 2 / 0

A few Black-capped Petrels to round out our images for the set! Light form above and dark form below from the 16th

And one by Dave Shoch from the trip on the 17th, another dark individual

One of the Sooty Shearwaters we saw on Sunday was eating something on the water - we didn't want to spook it so kept a bit of distance! Not sure what the prey item was - perhaps a squid!

Another Wilson's Stormie from the slick on Saturday

And a Band-rumped feeding in the slick on Sunday

One of the Mahi mahi we caught on Saturday followed by an iPhone photo of the Wahoo

And a very cool creature that lives in the stomach of Wahoos - we have found that larger, healthier Wahoo actually have more of these stomach parasites! This is actually a trematode, or flatworm, called Hirudinella ventricosa - thanks so much to Daniel for taking the time to show it to everyone and thanks to participant Eric Plage for giving me some photos for the blog!!