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

A Little Dose of North Wind - August 16, 17 by Kate Sutherland

I have been gone since the end of June to work in the Gulf of Mexico so Brian and the team got a few trips out in my absence...though the last trip on the 11th was following a lot of southerly wind. Having a bit of wind from the northeast on Friday, our first trip of the set, was really nice! Not only did we have nice temperatures but we had some swell rolling in from the east southeast as well thanks to Hurricane Ernesto. Even before we got to the shelf break on Friday we had a Fea's type Petrel fly right to the boat!

We were focused on a flock of birds ahead that had some Sooty Terns above and a Brown Booby 

in with some Cory's type and Audubon's Shearwaters - it must have been feeding in there with them! Just over the shelf we had a dark morph Trindade Petrel come to visit us before we even had a chum block out, what a great way to start not only the day but a two day set mid-August from Hatteras! 

Saturday, a day with a bit less wind, we found our first White-tailed Tropicbird of the year for bird trips and it really showed off for us checking out all of our "tropicbird teasers" that were out in the spread behind the boat. 

Both trips encountered excellent numbers and views of our Gulf Stream specialty the Black-capped Petrel and on Saturday we found a flock on the water with upwards of 60 individuals! Plus we saw one on Friday soaring way up high chasing a tern - not a behavior we see out there every day and super impressive. Views of both Atlantic Cory's and Scopoli's were easy to come by on both trips with some really nice shearwater flocks to sort through. Great Shearwaters were out there in low numbers with only four found on Friday and six on Saturday. Audubon's were around as well and of course they were easier to see on Saturday without as much wind. 

Sooty Terns were seen on both trips but we only had Bridled Terns on Saturday with at least eight encountered, there was a bit more flotsam around for them to perch on. 

We had good numbers of Wilson's Storm-Petrels for mid-summer but only one Band-rumped Storm-Petrel made an appearance on Friday's trip. This is the time of year they begin to become less predictable so it will be interesting to see how many we have running from Wanchese for the next week and a half. A quick glimpse of a jaeger on the shelf in the morning on Saturday was probably a Parasitic, but not seen well, and we had one first summer Pomarine Jaeger offshore of the shelf later that day. 

Red-necked Phalaropes seen well on Saturday afternoon rounded out our pelagic species list of 15! We also had some Common Terns out in the deep who followed us feeding on the chum and some Least Terns were seen offshore both days as well. 

Saturday we caught a blackfin tuna and a mahi mahi then Sunday Daniel hooked a blue marlin around a palm tree trunk that had a lot of life around it plus a Bridled Tern perched on top! 

He had it to the boat in short order then we paused to catch some of the mahi mahi there as well. Definitely a full couple of days offshore from Hatteras before we take the boat up the beach to Wanchese to run some trips from Oregon Inlet for the end of the month.

Thank you so much to everyone who joined us offshore and a huge thank you to Daniel Irons for leading both trips and Sage Church for joining us to help on Saturday! All photos today are mine 🙂

~ Kate Sutherland

Species List August 16 / 17 2024

Red-necked Phalarope - 0 / 10

Semipalmated Sandpiper - 0 / 1

peep species - 0 / 1

shorebird species - 1 / 0

Pomarine Jaeger - 0 / 1

jaeger species - 0 / 1

Laughing Gull - 1 / 0

Sooty Tern - 12 / 6

Bridled Tern - 0 / 8

Least Tern - 5 / 1

Black Tern - 0 / 9

Common Tern - 6 / 14

Common / Arctic Tern - 1 / 0

Royal Tern - 4 / 2

White-tailed Tropicbird - 0 / 1

Wilson's Storm-Petrel - 52 to 57 / 83 to 85

Band-rumped Storm-Petrel - 1 / 0

Fea's type Petrel (likely Desertas) - 1 / 0

Trindade Petrel dark morph - 1 / 0

Black-capped Petrel - 68 / 125

Atlantic Cory's Shearwater - 13 / 9

Scopoli's Shearwater - 13 / 24

Cory's / Scopoli's Shearwater - 82 / 122 to 125

Great Shearwater - 4 / 6

Audubon's Shearwater - 13 / 31

Brown Booby - 1 / 0

Bottlenose Dolphin - 0 / 36 to 40

Scalloped or Carolina Hammerhead Shark - 1 / 0

Caught and released - 

Blue Marlin - 0 / 1

Caught -

Blackfin Tuna - 1 / 0

Mahi mahi (Atlantic Dolphinfish) - 1 / 15

Wandering Glider - 0 / a few

Spot-wing Glider - 0 / at least one

Black Saddlebags - 0 / at least one

Black-capped Petrels!!

Atlantic Cory's Shearwater

Scopoli's Shearwater

Great Shearwater

Wilson's Storm-Petrels

Sooty Terns - juvenile above, adult below showing dark underprimaries

Bridled Tern - showing white in the underprimaries in flight plus grayer overall above than Sooty Tern

Common Tern

Bottlenose Dolphin

A Mahi mahi or Atlantic Dolphinfish being reeled in to the boat

And a few flyingfish for you! Top Bandwinged Flyingfish not a full adult, middle a "Sargassum" Flyingfish - perhaps a young bandwinged, and a Blackwing Flyingfish (not the Atlantic Blackwing...!)