Saturday October 10, 2015 - by Brian Patteson

It was good to be back offshore with a birding trip after a rainy and windy two weeks here at Cape Hatteras. Dr. Fred Alsop brought his Coastal Ecology Class to the Outer Banks for a field trip that has been a tradition for 35 years. We’ve been taking Fred’s group on pelagic trips since 1994 when I started organizing trips in Hatteras. We also had a handful of other birders along, including stalwart regulars and new participants.

The forecast called for a rainy day, but it turned out not to be the case, as the rain came much later than predicted, beginning soon after we returned to the dock. The morning was beautiful with light westerly winds and smooth seas. We left the dock at first light and enjoyed an easy ride to the Gulf Stream, which we found near the shelf break about 23 miles out. There was a distinct color change where the clear blue water met the rather murky inshore water. This is not always the case in October, but we’ve had so much rain and wind that I expect it will take a while for the shelf water to clear up. We did not find much bird activity near this color change, but we did have a quick look at a Leatherback Turtle which we startled as we arrived at the edge.

I figured there would be at least a few Black-capped Petrels out in the deeper water, so we eased out toward the slope waters right away. Approaching 200 fathoms we saw a distant Black-cap and we increased our chumming effort by melting a homemade chum block. Within minutes we had Black-caps close at hand and a Northern Fulmar also came in and gave us good looks (photo by Brian Patteson).

There has been a strong showing of fulmars in New England already, so it was not a big surprise, but we usually don’t get them quite so early here. We continued to work offshore, but all we came up with were a few Cory’s and Audubon’s Shearwaters. There was not much Sargassum, so it’s not surprising that Audubon’s were hard to find, but Cory’s were remarkably scarce for a fall day.

After a while, it seemed like most of the Black-capped Petrels were fading behind us, so we backtracked inshore. The wind also freshened and we soon had quite a following of Black-caps, with up to 20 in view.

They followed us in close to the edge of the Gulf Stream, which was in about 75 fathoms when we crossed in the afternoon. But before we left the blue water we stopped to sample the Sargassum with a dip net. Compared to late summer, the “Gulf Weed” was in short supply. We did not get any fish in our sample, but we had the usual shrimp and crabs. The highlight, however, were some Sargassum Nudibranchs- little gastropods that look just like the habitat they live in.

A Great Shearwater came by for a close pass, as we were getting ready to head back to shore. The ride back in the dirty water was uneventful as expected, but the trip to the Gulf Stream had been well worth it and hopefully it will inspire some of its first time visitors to return there someday.

I would like to thank all of our participants,-especially Fred for bring his class, and our leaders- Kate Sutherland, Jeff Lemons, and Kyle Kittelberger for making this a successful trip.

Trip List:

Common Loon  2

Northern Fulmar  1

Black-capped Petrel  50-70

Cory's Shearwater  16

Great Shearwater  2

Audubon's Shearwater  5

jaeger sp.  2-3

Great Blue Heron  1

Blue-winged Teal  13

American Pipit  1

Leatherback Turtle  1

Inshore Bottlenose Dolphin  30-40

marlin sp.  1

A few more images of the ever impressive Black-capped Petrel:

top photo by Brian Patteson

A Scopoli's Shearwater (nominate Cory's):

A photo of the Great Blue Heron, zoomed in!

& one more of the Sargassum Nudibrachs, such cool little creatures!

 A couple of ships we crossed paths with over the course of the day...

Sunday September 6, 2015

We had scheduled a couple of trips on the F/V Skua for this past weekend, but in keeping with weather patterns of late, we had northeast winds predicted for both Saturday & Sunday.  Saturday morning the weather buoy at Diamond Shoals showed the wind blowing strongly and steadily from the northeast with very steep waves, a bit too much for the biggest little boat in the harbor!  Brian met our participants at the dock to fill them in and let them know that Sunday would hopefully go, as it was forecast to be a bit calmer.  Luckily it was, and I headed out with Capt. Will Whitley and a full boat at 0617 on the 6th.  Brian had a conflict with a fishing trip scheduled on the Stormy Petrel II, so he did not join us.  It was strange to see her behind us in the morning as the sun rose (she's on the left)!

The ocean was much calmer than anticipated, though we knew it was windier offshore, and that in the Gulf Stream current the wind would make our ride a little wilder!  Just after 0830 we slowed down for a group of Red-necked Phalaropes concentrated by a nice line of sargassum

and also saw some Audubon's & Cory's Shearwaters there.  Will spotted a current edge up ahead and when we reached it, the temperature went up 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit, with the Gulf Stream moving at about 1.2 knots on the far side.  I knew we were in a good place when we saw a jaeger ahead chasing some Bridled Terns - a Long-tailed I thought just from watching its behavior and taking note of its size and shape.  The photos I snapped were not the best, but it was identifiable as a juvenile individual.

This was a nice place to spend some time, so before we headed offshore to deeper water, we cruised along the sargassum and found some more Bridled Terns, adults with their attendant young.  There were two perched on a piece of flotsam, the adult paying little attention to its very vocal companion!

Wilson's Storm-Petrels were slow to gather in the slick when we put out our oil slick around 100 fathoms.  Their numbers begin to thin out in late August and September, so I was glad to see as many as we did!  And while Band-rumpeds are not unheard of in September, careful examination and scanning did not reveal any on Sunday.  Our first close shearwater was a Sooty that ignored our chum and continued by to the southeast, but, as if to make up for it, we had two very cooperative Great Shearwaters come right in to the stern where they spent time feeding and diving!  Out over the edge of the shelf we finally picked up our first Black-capped Petrel just before 1130 and we had excellent views of this amazing seabird in the slick for most of the afternoon.  

Audubon's Shearwaters were by far the most abundant shearwater of the day and we were able to approach them on the water, and they us in flight.  We had a young Herring Gull that came in shortly after 1100 staying with us in the slick for the rest of the day, and even following for awhile after we picked up for the run back to the inlet!  Two second summer Pomarine Jaegers visited the slick, one just after 1130 and the other closer to 1400, a nice treat after the quick glimpse of the first jaeger in the morning!

Overall it was an awesome day out there, in spite of, or perhaps because of, the wind and the Gulf Stream current!  Thanks to everyone who joined us offshore, and a big thank you also to Capt. Will Whitley for doing an excellent job piloting the boat all day!  - Kate Sutherland

Trip List

Black-capped Petrel  13-16

Cory's Shearwater  26

Great Shearwater  9

Sooty Shearwater  1

Audubon's Shearwater  59

Wilson's Storm-Petrel  40-50

Red-necked Phalarope  28

Bridled Tern  10

Black Tern  40

Pomarine Jaeger  2

Long-tailed Jaeger  1

Herring Gull  1

Sandwich Tern  1

Flyingfish seen: Atlantic Patchwing, Atlantic Necromancer, Oddspot Midget, Sargassum Midget, & possibly some Purple Bandwings

Cory's Shearwater (all photos today by Kate Sutherland!)

Great Shearwater

 Wilson's Storm-Petrel

One of the young Bridled Terns seen in the morning

& another take on one of the youngsters

Saturday August 29, 2015

We had originally planned a set of trips from Oregon Inlet to the north this past weekend, but bookings lagged behind as the date approached and we switched to a single trip from Hatteras.  Winds blew briskly from the northeast most of the week, including Friday and Saturday, so perhaps it was best that we ran from Hatteras Inlet that faces south!  Skies were overcast as we headed offshore and we examined our first shearwaters of the day in the rain, but we had excellent looks at Cory's, Great, & Audubon's Shearwaters, Wilson's Storm-Petrels, Bridled Terns, and Red-necked Phalaropes, all before we slowed down and started chumming at 0945.  The small flock of shearwaters we found were feeding over a huge hammerhead shark, we glimpsed a few Atlantic Spotted Dolphins on the way out, plus there were flyingfish...it was shaping up to be a great day offshore in spite of the rain!  We have had some spectacular moonlit nights recently so I was not sure how the birds, especially the Black-capped Petrels, would respond to the chum if they had been feeding overnight...but our slick was well attended all day (photo by Kate Sutherland)!

A young Long-tailed Jaeger appeared way back in the slick a little after 11, making its way toward the boat, but not making a very close pass until its second appearance. Band-rumped Storm-Petrels are nearing the end of their season with us, so we were very pleased to have at least two individuals show up with the Wilson's and make a few nice passes so that everyone aboard had a chance to see them.  The highlight for me, though, was a Black-capped Petrel that followed us in the slick for almost an hour feeding the entire time.  We see birds exhibit this behavior from time to time, but photos revealed this to be a white-faced individual in juvenal plumage (photo by Kate Sutherland)!

Spectacular find since young birds are rarely seen offshore here, at least we don't find many on our trips!  Then, another dark-faced bird came in to feed on the chum as well, and the size difference was noticeable with the naked eye - it was an excellent end to the day!  Right before we pulled up the chum, Brian stopped and we put out the rest of the shark liver...some Cory's flew in to join the Wilson's and Black-cappeds and a first summer Pomarine Jaeger followed giving us a nice show!

Overall it was a spectacular day out there!  On the way back to the dock we spotted a Manatee that I later found out has been seen around in the Pamlico Sound for the last month, a first for me!

Thank you to everyone who joined us and a big thanks to Jeff Lemons & Lev Frid for helping us lead the trip!  Also thanks to Amanda Guercio for allowing us to use some of her images here!

Trip List
Black-capped Petrel  47
Cory's Shearwater  67
Great Shearwater  8
Audubon's Shearwater  43
Wilson's Storm-Petrel  82-97
Band-rumped Storm-Petrel  2
Oceanodroma sp.  1
Red-necked Phalarope  3+
Bridled Tern  6
Black Tern  1
Long-tailed Jaeger  1
Pomarine Jaeger  1

Osprey  1
Northern Waterthrush  1
Bottlenose Dolphin  9
Atlantic Spotted Dolphin  3
Manatee!  1

Black-capped Petrel (Amanda Guercio)

A few images of the young Black-capped Petrel (Kate Sutherland)

A couple images of the two Black-cappeds feeding in the slick together (Kate Sutherland)

Wilson's Storm-Petrels in the slick (Amanda Guercio)

We had nice numbers of Wilson's for late August! (Kate Sutherland)

Ventral view of the first summer Pomarine Jaeger (Kate Sutherland)

& the Athens Highway...(Kate Sutherland)  We often see these car carriers offshore, and this one was headed from Baltimore, MD to Charleston, SC.

August 21 & 22, 2015 by Brian Patteson

It was good to be back out on the big boat with a good number of participants on two consecutive trips.  The weather was quite different each day.  On Friday we had light winds and slight seas for most of the day and on Saturday, it was pretty testy in the hot fast water for the six hours were spent there.   Shearwaters were seen in good numbers each day and recent trends continued.  We had modest numbers of Cory’s Shearwaters (photo by Kate Sutherland, individual pictured is a good candidate for Scopoli's)

and good numbers of Great and Audubon’s Shearwaters.  On Friday morning there was a good flight of shearwaters as we headed out over the continental shelf, but there were also many birds sitting by mid morning.  On Saturday, there were more birds moving over a very broad front for most of the morning.  Storm-petrels were very scarce on Friday and we had our first miss on Band-rumped since May.  We did better with Wilson’s on Saturday, but it took a while to chum up a few Band-rumps.  Black-capped Petrels were very scarce on Friday, but showed up well with the wind on Saturday (photo by Kate Sutherland). 

It was a great day for Black-caps and we had several feeding close in the chum during the early afternoon.  On Friday we had a nice flock of Bridled Terns come in and feed in the slick.  That’s right- we chummed up the terns (photo by Kate Sutherland). 

Sooty Terns were notably absent after being around the last couple of weekends.   We did not find any feeding flocks of seabirds over tuna in the slope waters this weekend despite a bit of looking.   Friday was a good day for phalaropes and we saw a few flocks, but they were all on the move.  I was hoping for some jaegers with the cold front, but our only good look was a Pomarine chasing Audubon’s Shearwaters on Friday.  Mid to late August has historically been a good time to see Trindade Petrels and tropicbirds, but they have not been around much lately.  What have been around though are boobies and we saw two nice ones on Friday: first a flyby Brown spotted by Kate, and then a second summer Masked Booby I picked out of a shearwater flock (photo with Cory's by Kate Sutherland).  

The Brown was our third for the season and it was our second Masked Booby for the year.  I would like to thank Kate Sutherland for doing her usual excellent job leading and this week's guest leaders- Scott Winton (check out his blog post about the trips here) and Natalia Ocampo Penuela- for doing an outstanding job as well.  They were particularly diligent in reporting every bird they saw for the day’s count.  We are running another trip from Hatteras  on Saturday, August 29 and space is available.  We also have space on a small boat trip on Sept. 5.  After that, we don’t have any open trips scheduled for a while, but we are open for charters.  September is a good month for seabirds here- usually all month long.  Thank you to everyone who joined us for these trips!

Trip Lists for Aug 21 / 22
Black-capped Petrel  13 / 38-43
Cory's Shearwater  131 / 154
Great Shearwater  31 / 17
Audubon's Shearwater  67 / 83
Wilson's Storm-Petrel  32 / 76-81
Band-rumped Storm-Petrel  0 / 3-5
Oceanodroma sp.  0 / 2
Masked Booby  1 / 0
Brown Booby  1 / 0
Red-necked Phalarope  60 / 0
Bridled Tern  11 / 1
Onychoprion sp.  0 / 1  
Black Tern  32 / 20+
Pomarine Jaeger  1 / 0

Black-capped Petrel showing the white rump and why Steve Howell calls it a flying field mark!  (Kate Sutherland)

We had some white-faced Black-cappeds on Saturday's trip (Kate Sutherland)

A couple of photos to show the conditions on Saturday, and why the Black-cappeds were on the move in their element! (Kate Sutherland)

And a darker Black-capped (Kate Sutherland)

This photo illustrates how cooperative Friday's Masked Booby was! (Brian Patteson)

& in flight (Kate Sutherland)

A couple more Bridled Tern shots from Friday!  First Summer individual (Kate Sutherland)

 Adult (Kate Sutherland)

August 14 & 16, 2015 - Discovery Series by Brian Patteson

We had pleasantly cool conditions for the small boat trips over the weekend.  We went offshore aboard the Skua on Friday and Sunday.  The north wind made for some choppy seas in the blue water but we had good close looks at the summer seabirds.  Some of the Wilson’s Storm-Petrels were almost close enough to touch as they fed busily in the slick.  

Band-rumped Storm-Petrels were present in small numbers and gave us many good views.  A single Leach’s Storm-Petrel with incomplete carpal bars and a narrower than usual rump patch got by me on Friday.  I should have taken a longer look but Kate got some photos. 

There has been some talk about the younger Leach’s looking more like Band-rumps after a Texas pelagic trip earlier this month where they saw some messy looking birds, but had a lot of photos to pour over.  It’s definitely a challenge sometimes and I remember we had a hard time with these birds when they were blown nearshore after hurricanes in years past.  Back then we didn’t have the photos to fall back on either.  Anyhow the times are changing and it’s amazing how you can take a digital photo of a distant tern or jaeger from the boat now, blow it up to full pixels, and see what you couldn’t resolve with the binocular.  I still think storm-petrels are best observed without bins if they are close enough, but there are times when you need to take a long look.

Black-capped Petrels made a good showing on both trips.  We have not had really high numbers lately, but they have feeding pretty well on our chum.  

We saw the usual shearwaters.  We had modest numbers of Cory’s and Greats but not many Audubon’s.  Hopefully we will get another influx of the latter when the wind veers to the south.  We did not see any phalaropes, but between the scattered grass and wind chop that’s not too surprising.  There were a number of Sooty Terns on both days, but we did not see a Bridled Tern well until Sunday. 

It’s amazing how many Bridled Terns we pick up with our chum slick.  There were also a few Black Terns offshore.  Three Pomarine Jaegers followed the boat for a few miles on Friday.  We were hoping for a Trindade Petrel or some other rarity, but had no such luck.  Maybe we will have a showing before the summer is over.  Bottlenose Dolphins on Sunday were the only cetaceans we saw offshore, but they put on a nice show close to the boat.   I would like to thank Kate for her hard work on deck both days and our intrepid participants- especially those who came back after bumpy trip on Friday only to have me take them out to the washing machine on Sunday when most of the birds seemed to be in the hot fast water.

Trip Lists Aug 14 / 16
Black-capped Petrel  32-34 / 45-47
Cory's Shearwater  104-105 / 102
Great Shearwater  15 / 23-25
Audubon's Shearwater  7 / 8
Wilson's Storm-Petrel  143-153 / 150-160
Leach's Storm-Petrel  1 / 0
Band-rumped Storm-Petrel  10 / 7-8
Sooty Tern  28 / 3
Bridled Tern  0 / 5
Onchyprion sp.  2 / 0
Pomarine Jaeger  3 / 1
jaeger sp.  0 / 1
Laughing Gull (offshore) 0 / 4
Bottlenose Dolphin  0 / 15-20

Black-capped Petrel (dark faced individual)

 A white faced Black-capped Petrel that we saw on Sunday

Cory's Shearwaters on the water Sunday, illustrating how to ride over a wave in rough seas!

This individual looks like a good candidate for the nominate Cory's, or Scopoli's, Shearwater.

 A Great Shearwater flying over the slick with Wilson's Storm-Petrels.

Band-rumped Storm-Petrel

One of the three Pomarine Jaegers that followed us for over an hour on Friday!

 A younger individual