October and Our Gulf Stream Specialties! Oct 12 & 15th - by Kate Sutherland

Brian began running trips in October for Dr. Fred Alsop of Eastern Tennessee State University who offered a fall course in Coastal Biology back in 1994. Each year, or sometimes every other year, this course featured a trip to the Outer Banks of North Carolina where students could immerse themselves in the field and learn about the Gulf Stream with a trip offshore from Hatteras. We have encountered at least 20 pelagic species during October on these trips. But the superstars of October are always the Black-capped Petrels,

Black-capped Petrel © Kate Sutherland

known locally where they nest (on the island of Hispaniola) as the Diablotin or "Little Devil." This local name comes from the unearthly call of the Black-capped Petrel, a species like others in the genus Pterodroma, coming and going at night during their breeding period adding an unearthly quality to the calls. Historically many islands utilized by species in this genus were thought to be haunted, which was helpful for the birds survival because once humans learned they were just birds they were exploited for food. Bright lights can be confusing for them and in many places large bonfires easily collected birds as they flew into the flames.

Black-capped Petrels breed for the most part outside of hurricane season. Their cousin the Bermuda Petrel does the same thing. They begin to return to their colonies in September and October...the Cahows (Bermuda Petrels) begin to return in late October into November. This means that by the fall these species have completed their molt from the previous breeding season and are in fresh, crisp, gorgeous plumage. This makes the months of September and October some of the best times to photograph Black-capped Petrels offshore from Hatteras!

Sharp looking dark form Black-capped Petrel
© Kate Sutherland

We have some incredible counts for this species at this time of year as well - in September of 2024 we had close to 300 individuals and this month, in October of 2024, we easily had over 100. While it may seem like Black-capped Petrels are doing just fine with the numbers we encounter, they are actually in decline, the numbers that Brian had back in the 1990s or early 2000s are simply not seen anymore. They face loss of habitat on their only known breeding island, Hispaniola, and face a number of threats at sea - as do all of our seabirds right now - definitely a global issue! (If you are interested you can see the 2021 Conservation Update and Plan by clicking on hyperlink!) Here in Hatteras we are lucky that Black-cappeds utilize the edge of the Gulf Stream and its interior 365 days of the year. This, coupled with our proximity to the deep water offshore of the shelf means they can be found offshore, usually in good numbers, at any time of year. 

Another species that we typically find in the Gulf Stream is the Audubon's Shearwater (soon to be called the Sargasso Shearwater, though please note they are not found in the Sargasso Sea!). These small, black and white shearwaters nest in the Caribbean as well and can be found around Sargassum in the Gulf Stream and also in and around the Loop Current in the Gulf of Mexico.

Audubon's Shearwater foraging © Kate Sutherland

There are about 50 obligate species that live in this floating brown algae

Sargassum fluitans © Kate Sutherland

and Audubon's make a living feeding on them...though they also forage away from this habitat as well - being found in large feeding flocks over baitfish well offshore. Audubon's are ground nesters making their burrows by tunneling, as do a number of species in the order Procellariiformes (the "tubenosed" seabirds or petrels). They also finish nesting around July so on our fall trips we see these birds also in some nice plumage! 

This October was another with great views of both of these species! We also saw many Cory's and Scopoli's Shearwaters. While Scopoli's seem to increase in number from late May through August, Atlantic Cory's begin to show up in larger numbers as we move into the fall.

Atlantic Cory's feeding around some Sargassum 
© Kate Sutherland

There were many more of them around in October than we saw in August and September. When we start these Gulf Stream trips next May we will again have good numbers of Atlantic Cory's, especially in the nearshore, cooler waters. Scopoli's will be around, though maybe not as easy to find until higher numbers begin to show moving into the summer. Great Shearwater is another species that we usually see into the fall, and we had nice views of them out there for the two trips we ran this month.

Great Shearwater © Kate Sutherland

We won't likely see them again until late May / early June of 2025. Red and Red-necked Phalaropes were both found on our trips this month, but only the Red-neckeds were seen well, and we only turned up a single Wilson's Storm-Petrel...usually we do a bit better with those than we did this fall. This October we also only turned up a single Sooty Tern, a juvenile, though admittedly it is a bit late for these tropical terns to be still around offshore here! Overall it was a great couple of trips - we thank everyone who joined us for these!! A big thank you to Mary Alice Hayward for organizing a group to get the second trip out this month. Thank you also to our guest leaders: Sage Church and Steve Backus - Brian Patteson and I were also on both departures. - Kate Sutherland 

Species List October 12 / 15 2024

Red Phalarope - 1 / 0

Red-necked Phalarope - 0 / 3

Laughing Gull - 5 / 3

Herring Gull - 1 / 0

gull species - 0 / 3

Sooty Tern - 1 / 0

Black Tern - 1 / 0

Common Tern - 12 / 9

Royal Tern - 7 / 0

Wilson's Storm-Petrel - 0 / 1

Black-capped Petrel - 47 / 110

Atlantic Cory's Shearwater - 74 / 32

Scopoli's Shearwater - 29 / 21

Cory's / Scopoli's Shearwater - 321 / 258

Great Shearwater - 24 / 4

Audubon's Shearwater - 69 / 178

Mourning Dove - 1 / 0

Brown Pelican - 1 / 0

Merlin - 1 / 0

Peregrine Falcon - 1 / 0

Osprey 0 / 1

Barn Swallow - 0 / 1

passerine sp - 2 / 1

Atlantic Spotted Dolphin - 0 / 15 to 17

Offshore Bottlenose Dolphin - 4 / 0

Coastal Bottlenose Dolphin - 0 / 12

Monarch Butterfly - 0 / 1

Cloudless Sulphur - 1 / 0

Light form Black-capped Petrel © Kate Sutherland

Black-capped Petrel © Kate Sutherland

Black-capped Petrel © Kate Sutherland

Scopoli's Shearwater © Kate Sutherland

Scopoli's Shearwater © Kate Sutherland

Atlantic Cory's Shearwater © Kate Sutherland

Great Shearwater © Kate Sutherland

Audubon's Shearwater taking off 
© Kate Sutherland

Audubon's Shearwater © Kate Sutherland

Red-necked Phalaropes © Kate Sutherland

Atlantic Spotted Dolphins bow riding!
© Kate Sutherland

September Seabirds - Sept 1st & 28th - by Kate Sutherland

We only ran two trips this September, our trip the weekend of the 14/15 was cancelled due to weather, but that didn't keep us from finding NINETEEN pelagic species out there on the two days we did make it offshore!! Pretty incredible diversity for us here on the east coast and this rivals some of our lists for the spring. I have included the lists for the trips at the end of this report, so check those out!

1 September 2024 Trip Report

It was nice to get back offshore from Hatteras after our trips "up the beach" from Wanchese. Three young Long-tailed Jaegers gave us a great show just after 0700 as we were still heading offshore - a sign of things to come! We found Bridled and Sooty Terns

Young Bridled Tern © Kate Sutherland

Adult Sooty Tern © Kate Sutherland

as well as a number of shearwaters on the shelf then once we got offshore we just basically went from flock to flock - there were so many seabirds out there! Winds were from the typical direction for summer here, from the southwest, and it was blowing anywhere from 10 to 15 mph with some higher winds in the afternoon. Skies were partly cloudy to sunny.

Black-capped Petrel © Kate Sutherland

Black-capped Petrels seemed like they would be tough at first with not a single one encountered just over the break, but then we found quite a few sitting around on the water and of course they were in the large feeding flocks as the day went on - sometimes chasing other birds like the South Polar Skuas we found in the afternoon!

South Polar Skua © Kate Sutherland

Most of the large shearwaters we saw were Cory's / Scopoli's (over 2,000 of them!) and we had good views of both species in addition to Great, Sooty, Manx and Audubon's!

Manx Shearwater taking off © Kate Sutherland

Manx Shearwaters have made a nice showing here this summer and we've had great views of them on a number of trips. Sooty Shearwaters can be scarce here in the summer, but we've had a couple on our trips when there are a lot of feeding flocks and Kate had a couple on a research trip east of Hatteras Island this summer as well. We were also lucky to turn up all three species of jaeger on this trip and had incredible numbers of Sooty Terns, both adult and juveniles (at least 200). 

Leaders on this trip included: Brian Patteson, Kate Sutherland, Ed Corey and Daniel Irons

28 September 2024 Trip Report

There was certainly some swell holding on out there after Hurricane Helene kicked up some wind to the south of us as she moved north to our west. It was also a bit breezy so we had an exciting ride offshore! Skies were cloudy in the morning becoming partly cloudy as the day went on. We found the current edge just before we reached the shelf break a bit before 0900 and there were some birds around! We were busy on the shelf and offshore of the shelf today, definitely a lot of birds feeding and on the move! At 09:42 we had a Fea's Petrel come to visit the slick, it had a nice, thick bill and was not molting - it looked like a Desertas Petrel.

Desertas Petrel © Kate Sutherland

This species was recently in the news for utilizing tropical cyclones to forage - you can check out a brief summary here. It was crazy to see one Black-capped Petrel buzz the Desertas Petrel as it moved by our stern in the glare! But Black-cappeds do some interesting things out in the Gulf Stream and exhibit a lot of different behaviors...there were certainly a lot of them out there today and we enjoyed watching them!

Dark faced Black-capped Petrel © Kate Sutherland

It's likely we saw close to 300 individuals. A number were sitting around on the water and we had occasional pulses of ten or more in the slick, seeming to be moving together. These birds have just started to return to their colonies on Hispaniola and it seemed we saw a number that were in tandem flight. Daniel spotted a Brown Booby sailing along in front of a large dredge ship just after 10:30, we all got good looks at it as it flew up high just off the bow.

Brown Booby looking small over the bow of the dredge ship
© Kate Sutherland

Offshore Bottlenose Dolphins riding the bow wave © Kate Sutherland

There were some offshore Bottlenose Dolphins riding the bow of this ship as well! Then, as we continued on our way, we crossed a gorgeous, organized Sargassum line and Kate spotted another Brown Booby flying right down the line towards us - so we had even better views of that one. 

And a closer view © Kate Sutherland

Right around noon as we examined a flock of Black-cappeds on the water it turned out there was also a Bermuda Petrel tucked in with them!! We saw it when they flushed and many participants were able to get on this smaller, more slender bodied and longer tailed gadfly petrel in the seconds it was near the boat! This is the FIFTH trip we have encountered Bermuda Petrels on this year...the most trips we have seen this gorgeous rarity on in one year!!

Bermuda Petrel record shot © Kate Sutherland

It was nice to see all of the shearwaters out there - we had Cory's, Scopoli's, Great, Manx, and Audubon's - but interestingly zero Wilson's Storm-Petrels. We had awesome views of Sooty Terns, both adults and youngsters, and finally had some nice Bridled Tern views on the shelf in the afternoon. Jaegers were still out there and we had nice views of a juvenile Long-tailed Jaeger who was then chased by Black-capped Petrels! Imagine that?!

Long-tailed Jaeger center with Black-capped Petrels © Kate Sutherland

There were at least a dozen harassing this petite youngster. Pomarine Jaegers made a few appearances and were super cooperative and then we had a couple of Parasitic Jaegers that were not as cooperative. There were a lot of birds on the change in the afternoon as we headed back onto the shelf and we were very lucky to pick up an adult Sabine's Gull before we picked up speed to head in!

Sabine's Gull on the water and taking off © Kate Sutherland

While we often see immatures on these fall trips, it is rare for us to see adults, so definitely another treat.

We saw offshore Bottlenose Dolphins, as mentioned, and at least one Atlantic Spotted Dolphin today. There was also a shark species that leaped out of the water on our return leg and Daniel harvested three Mahi mahi or Atlantic Dolphinfish for us as well. Pretty incredible late September trip!!

Leaders today were: Brian Patteson, Kate Sutherland, Daniel Irons, and Jesse Anderson

Species List September 1 / 28 2024

Red-necked Phalarope - 0 / 55

Lesser Yellowlegs - 1 / 0

peep species - 2 / 0

Long-tailed Jaeger - 7 / 1

Parasitic Jaeger - 2 / 2

Pomarine Jaeger - 1 / 6

jaeger species - 4 / 2

South Polar Skua - 2 / 0

Sabine's Gull - 0 / 1

Laughing Gull - 6 / 1

Herring Gull - 0 / 1

Sooty Tern - 200 / 65

Bridled Tern - 16 / 3

Sooty / Bridled Tern - 2 / 3

Black Tern - 10 / 3

Common Tern - 4 / 18

Sterna sp. 0 / 7

Sandwich Tern - 0 / 2

Royal Tern - 7 / 3

Wilson's Storm-Petrel - 22 / 0

Fea's (Desertas) Petrel - 0 / 1

Bermuda Petrel - 0 / 1

Black-capped Petrel - 98 / 273

Atlantic Cory's Shearwater - 10 / 16

Scopoli's Shearwater - 45 / 55

Cory's / Scopoli's Shearwater - 1996 / 385

Great Shearwater - 296 / 5

Sooty Shearwater - 1 / 0

Manx Shearwater - 7 / 2

Audubon's Shearwater - 180 / 276

Brown Booby - 0 / 2

Atlantic Spotted Dolphin - 0 / 1

Offshore Bottlenose Dolphin - 0 / 10 to 20

shark sp. - 0 / 1

Caught -

Mahi mahi (Atlantic Dolphinfish) - 0 / 3

Here are a few more from these epic trips 💙 Thanks so much for reading! -Kate Sutherland

Some birds on the water from 1 Sept 2024

Cory's type Shearwater on the water
© Kate Sutherland

Great Shearwater on the water
© Kate Sutherland

Audubon's Shearwater on the water
© Kate Sutherland

And a South Polar Skua on the water
© Kate Sutherland

Long-tailed Jaeger checking out a Scopoli's
© Kate Sutherland

And a few more images from our 28 Sept 2024 trip, we'll start with our favorites, the "little devils" or Diablotins (Black-capped Petrels) all © Kate Sutherland

Atlantic Cory's Shearwater © Kate Sutherland

Scopoli's Shearwater dorsal view © Kate Sutherland

Scopoli's Shearwater ventral view © Kate Sutherland

We also had great views of a number of species of flyingfish on both trips! Here are a few images from 1 Sept 2024. Our bog standard fliers are the Atlantic Flyingfish and the Fourwinged Flyingfish. They look very similar in the field.

Atlantic or Four-winged Flyingfish © Kate Sutherland

Not sure what species this is, but I have not seen one take
a flip like this on reentry before! © Kate Sutherland

Margined Flyingfish, with the dark pelvic fins I think this is likely
an immature form of this species. © Kate Sutherland

Summer "Blitz" from Oregon Inlet 20 to 29 August 2024 by Kate Sutherland

It's always fun to plan some time "up the beach" heading offshore east of Hatteras Island and while the run is a bit longer to get to the deeper water (and this summer the hot, Gulf Stream water!) you never know what you'll find and it's a really fascinating ecosystem with the confluence of two water masses. This sea surface temperature image taken at the end of August illustrates what we mean when we talk about this:

I have starred Oregon Inlet and Hatteras Inlet and you can see how the hot, Gulf Stream waters move offshore of Hatteras Island. This is a unique feature we are so lucky to have here and it is always moving and changing from day to day, minute to minute actually. As you can see Hatteras is closer to the deep water but Oregon Inlet gives us the opportunity to investigate the edge of the Gulf Stream in the summer when our waters to the south are a bit more uniformly warm.

Gulf Stream edge with a nice color change © Kate Sutherland

We were very lucky that the conditions were good and we were able to run all eight of the trips we scheduled from Oregon Inlet, though admittedly some were a bit rough when we had wind against fast moving current (always good for seabirds, though!).

Here are our totals for the set:

As you can see we had a lot of diversity out there! Captain Brian mentioned that these trips in the late summer can rival our early spring trips for the number of species encountered, especially this year when our spring conditions were a bit unusual. One morning we had thirteen species of seabird before we even reached the shelf break! Another morning we tallied ten. Some days we had really nice conditions with organized Sargassum lines, other days we found good feeding activity over yellowfin, blackfin, and skipjack tuna.

Cahow (Bermuda Petrel) 21 Aug © Kate Sutherland

Highlights were two Bermuda Petrels one week apart and one Fea's Petrel that Daniel Irons and I saw briefly plus incredible numbers of Black-capped Petrels on most trips and some really cool behavior we saw them exhibiting like kettling up high, chasing Sooty Terns, and rafted on the water in large groups!

Black-capped Petrel checking out the slick © Kate Sutherland

Light form Black-capped Petrel on the water © Kate Sutherland

We finally found our White-tailed Tropicbirds for the summer and had at least three of them on these trips with two putting on a great show for us on August 24th. 

White-tailed Tropicbird © Kate Sutherland

South Polar Skuas were a bit scarce this year but we also didn't really ever have the right wind for them when we had trips...so it was great to have some nice views of them on this set. We always hope to see them when we get big, feeding flocks of shearwaters and tuna so it was a nice set up for encountering the ones that are here. We had at least one juvenile and a few first cycle individuals.

South Polar Skua chasing shearwaters © Kate Sutherland

Shearwaters were around in good numbers and it was great to finally have people excited about Cory's and Scopoli's Shearwaters! We have been separating them for years now and most people were not super excited to learn about the similarities and differences but now that they finally can tick off another species on their list (or in eBird) it is all the rage - you just have to spend a moment on any online platform to see what superstars they have become! We mostly saw Scopoli's but found at least a few Atlantic Cory's on each trip. 

Scopoli's Shearwater © Amanda Guercio

Atlantic Cory's Shearwater © Amanda Guercio

Great Shearwaters seemed to be hit or miss. Usually they are around in good numbers this time of year but only a couple of trips found more than 100. 

Great Shearwater © Amanda Guercio

Daniel had some teasers rigged without hooks to attract the birds to us along with the chum and fish oil and just about every species checked them out, even the storm-petrels were curious about them, but the ones who "took the bait" most often were Great, Scopoli's or Cory's Shearwaters! We had some extra squid on hand to throw out to them in these cases :) rewarding their hard work!

Scopoli's Shearwater with a squid © Kate Sutherland

Manx Shearwaters made a nice showing up there and we recorded them on all but one trip. Sargasso (aka Audubon's) Shearwaters were around in solid numbers in spite of periods of northerly winds. On 27 August we tallied almost 250.

Manx Shearwater on the water © Daniel Irons

Manx Shearwater taking off © Amanda Guercio

Sargasso (Audubon's) Shearwater - ventral © Amanda Guercio

Sargasso (Audubon's) Shearwater over some Sargassum  © Daniel Irons

Wilson's Storm-Petrels also made a solid showing for the summer, a time when they typically begin to thin out, and we had a few late season Band-rumped Storm-Petrels as well, though some were tough for everyone to get on. 

Band-rumped Storm-Petrel © Kate Sutherland

It seemed like we had good habitat for phalaropes but we still missed them on a couple of trips, conditions may not have always been perfect for seeing these small ocean going shorebirds! We had a high of 81 Red-necked Phalaropes on 28 August and didn't encounter any Red Phalaropes, a species we can sometimes find in the spring and definitely find out here in the winter!

Red-necked Phalaropes © Amanda Guercio

Typically summer is a good time to see sulids offshore here and while we did find some Brown Boobies Masked Booby was scarce with only one near adult flying by on our last trip up the beach. 

Immature Brown Booby checking us out © Kate Sutherland

It was an awesome set for jaegers with all three species putting in appearances and at least one jeager encountered each trip. Though we had the best time with the young Long-taileds who were often on the Sargassum lines feeding and chasing terns! With at least 27 tallied over the eight days they gave us some incredible photo ops, especially on our last couple of trips!

Long-tailed Jaeger © Amanda Guercio

Long-tailed Jaeger in flight © Daniel Irons

South Polar Skuas have been a bit scarce here this year, as I mentioned, but it's likely due to the conditions...we had persistent westerlies this spring and the shearwaters were not here like they usually are...so it was nice to have three to five individuals on our first day out and a couple more trips that encountered them! Some were also curious about our teasers and came quite close to peer at them.

South Polar Skua behind the Stormy Petrel II © Kate Sutherland

It was awesome to see the Sooty Terns out there, as always, with their loud youngsters learning the ropes at sea! They are definitely birds that indicate summer to us here and our final trip we tallied over 300. We had a great time watching them feeding on flying fish with the shearwaters as they were chased from below the surface by small tuna. These scenes of life offshore just never get old!!

Sooty Tern and Skipjack Tuna © Kate Sutherland

As we always mention to people on our trips, Sooty Terns do spend time sitting on the sea...not just flying nonstop for years as is sometimes reported. We encountered a number of individuals doing this on these trips including adults feeding young birds on the water!

Three Sooty Terns taking off © Kate Sutherland

Adult Sooty Tern © Daniel Irons

Bridled Terns were not out there in great numbers, they always seem more scarce than Sooty Terns in the summer, but we saw them on five of the eight trips with really great views on the 29 August trip. They also have their youngsters in tow and it's always fun to bird by ear with these tropical terns - the young Bridleds have a call like blowing across the top of a glass bottle!

Perched Bridled Tern © Kate Sutherland

Also of note was a flock of 39 Hudsonian Godwits on 24 August and four Roseate Terns out there on 29 August. We encountered a number of other terns and gulls, plus a few passerines and a Great Blue Heron - all to be expected as we move from late summer into the fall!

As you can see from the species list we also had some nice cetacean sightings with good views of Offshore Bottlenose Dolphins, Pilot Whales (likely Short-finned), and even some Goosebeaks (aka Cuvier's Beaked Whales). 

Goosebeaked Whale © Kate Sutherland

Pilot Whales (likely Short-finned) © Kate Sutherland

Common (Offshore) Bottlenose Dolphin © Kate Sutherland

27 August we found three or four Leatherback Turtles that made a nice showing 

Close Leatherback Turtle! © Daniel Irons

and we had some awesome looks at Ocean Sunfish (Mola mola) on a couple of the trips! 

Ocean Sunfish (Mola mola) © Kate Sutherland

Leader Daniel Irons has been honing his offshore fishing skills over the past few years and he was able to keep us fed for some time with good catches of Mahi mahi (Atlantic Dolphinfish), some Blackfin and Yellowfin Tuna! 

A tiny Bluefin Tuna! We released it to keep growing! © Kate Sutherland

A Mahi mahi (Atlantic Dolphinfish) leaping behind a Cory's type Shearwater!
 © Kate Sutherland

Tiny squid species spit out by one of the Mahi we harvested!!
© Kate Sutherland

Daniel with the first yellowfin tuna he caught on this set
© Kate Sutherland

It was a great set with participants driven to get offshore, excited about what's out there, and leaders we couldn't operate without!! This set our leaders included: Daniel Irons and Amanda Guercio who both were on all eight trips, Ed Corey, Doug Gochfeld, and Andrew Thornton. Daniel and Amanda also were kind enough to supply some photos for me to use here! As always our intrepid Captain Brian Patteson was on every trip up the beach. I was only able to make six due to some work (offshore, of course!) for Duke Marine Lab out at "The Point!"

Thanks so much for reading and checking out our photos! 

We headed home on the 30th and ran a trip from Hatteras on 1 September, you can check out the eBird Trip Report here: 

https://ebird.org/tripreport/272278

~ Kate Sutherland