Two or three species of jaegers this week in LIS is a good omen for us on Sunday, I think, I hope....
On Wednesday Sept 3rd Frank Mantlik and Greg Hanisek had one Long-tailed Jaeger in mid-sound off Stratford/Milford CT, in CT waters. Key to the ID was the slight body size, the bird's body proportions, the minimal amount of white in the primaries, and the buoyant tern-like flight.
On Thursday Sept 4th Frank Mantlik and Tina Green had two jaegers (spp?) at the east end of Long Island Sound. Also two Caspian Terns near Fisher's Island.
THESE WERE TWO PELAGIC TRIPS ONE WEEKEND BEFORE OUR 9/7 TRIP: Feast or Famine?
There have been lots of seabirds near and far off the coast of New England this season, but, unfortunately, seabirding is sometimes like gambling. Often you roll your dice and you get little or nothing, as Mark Lynch did on Saturday Aug 30th in a 3-4 hour whale watch trip around Stellwagen Bank....
AUG 30 TRIP AROUND STELLWAGEN BANK:
AUG 30 TRIP OFF CHATHAM:
On the same Aug 30th Blair Nikula and Peter Flood went out to a different area 12miles east of Chatham MA and got a better collection of the expected marine bird species... here are Peter's photos... East of Chatham - August 30, 2014 - an album on Flickr
and here is Blair Nikula's trip report ... Birding News | #birdingnews via @aba ...
"Subject: Chatham pelagic - 8/30
Date: Sun Aug 31 2014 17:08 pm
From: odenews AT odenews.org
We conducted another Chatham pelagic yesterday (8/30), our 9th so far
this year, and experienced another very enjoyable day on the water.
Winds were light out of the south, though there was a bit of residual
chop from the previous day, and we had a dry, comfortable ride. Not
having been out in almost three weeks, we had no idea what, if anything,
was happening off Chatham, but we decided to head southeast from the
inlet. The first few miles were very slow, even terns and Laughing
Gulls, normally staples inshore at this season, were few and far between.
Eventually we began to see a few Wilson's Storm-Petrels, which were to
be in evidence throughout the morning. Then about 10 miles out we found
a commercial skate boat that had a good slug of gulls along with a few
shearwaters and many storm-petrels in its wake. A chumming session here
was very successful, attracting all four species of shearwaters and
numerous storm-petrels into point-blank range. Turning south at this
point, we quickly found more flocks of shearwaters, terns, and Laughing
Gulls, many in ephemeral foraging aggregations over schools of bait at
the surface, others loafing in rafts of up to 50+ birds on the water.
After enjoying this spectacle for a while we began a leisurely return to
port, continuing to see shearwaters, storm-petrels, and a couple of
distant jaegers along the way. About halfway back, the captain spotted
a couple of Red-necked Phalaropes on the water; although typically
skittish, everyone had good, albeit brief view of these birds before
they disappeared. Capping off the trip was an adult Black Skimmer
sitting on the flats southeast of the fish pier just before we docked.
Highlights (0715 - 1100 hrs.):
125 Cory's Shearwaters
275 Great Shearwaters
15 Sooty Shearwaters
20 Manx Shearwaters
225 Wilson's Storm-Petrels
2 Red-necked Phalaropes (juv.)
2 Parasitic Jaegers (brief views, identified from Peter Flood's photo after the trip)
2 jaeger sp. (distant - Parasitic/Long-tailed types; jaegers were definitely not a feature today)
175 Laughing Gulls (almost all well offshore)
1 Black Tern (several miles offshore)
40 Roseate Terns (probably more - most detected by voice)
350 Common Terns (almost all well offshore; several flocks of birds on the water)
A complete checklist and image of our route is at:
http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S19613394
Blair Nikula"
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| Click on Blair's 8/30 map to expand. |
And in trips just a week or two earlier there were lot of seabirds in waters near these, including tens of thousands of shearwaters. Fortunately our 9/7 ship will go out for eight hours, and into waters where we think we have the best chances for whales and seabirds. I am also bringing a lot of menhaden oil with us, to lay down a very long slick of oil to attract whatever seabirds are within miles. Now, if we can just get a little help from the weather, from Mother Nature, and from Lady Luck!
We will try our best to find good seabirds during our 8-hour trip on 9/7 but of course there are no guarantees. There are no "stakeouts" for these kind of transient seabirds. At least lets enjoy the opportunity to be ten and twenty miles off shore on the wild Atlantic Ocean. That itself is a wonderful treat. (-:
