Two Trips: Sept.22-23 and Oct.22


Our last organized pelagic trip of the 2018 year (Oct.7-8, 2018) got its target: 2 Great Skuas in mid-Gulf Of Maine

Race Point seabird spectacular

Click on this, just do it...

eBird Checklist – Race Point, Massachusetts – Sat Sep 23, 2017 – 59 species (+2 other taxa)

Plus a possible Short-tailed Shearwater, from Australian waters.

2017 Sept. 29-30 GOM Pelagic Trip PLANS

You can still join this trip, which departs Friday afternoon, less than two days from now. You need to notify us and to make your own reservations at the hotel and the ship, as described below...
YOU ALSO NEED YOUR PASSPORT.


G.O.M. CROSSING:
"Marine Survey #17" is our group name.
September 29-30 Friday-Saturday, departing from Portland ME friday mid-day, to Yarmouth NS, and back the next morning. 24-hour trip.
Cross the Gulf of Maine, 210 miles each way (each crossing is 6.5 hours on the water -- both crossings in daylight).
PASSPORT REQUIRED.
REGISTRATION REQUIRED with Tom Robben ASAP (robben99@gmail.com). This trip is less than one week from now.

Liability waiver will be required. Please print, sign, date and return this document (either by email or bring it with you on Friday)...
**Liability waiver for 20170929-30 GOM trip v1  << click here to display & then print.

FAIR WARNING:  This is a specialized trip. This is not your typical birding trip, and not even your typical pelagic trip. We will not see many species of birds, and most of what we do see will be distant, usually on the wing, and some will be quickly gone. We will not chase them, on this public high-speed ferry. This is a hunt for a very few species, across a vast expanse of ocean (1/4mile scan x 420miles = 105-square miles of ocean viewed). If we see only one bird, and that bird is a Great Skua (which are few and far between in North America), we will consider this trip a success. But you will never forget this trip.
#1 Target Species: Great Skua. 50% likely. We had 2 last year.

This trip replaces the ones scheduled for both Oct.7-8 and Sept.22-23.
MEETING TIME: 1:15pm Friday September 29.
MEETING LOCATION: Portland, Maine at 12 Ocean Gateway Pier. At small CAT building, a few hundred feet NE of intersection of Thames and Hancock Streets.
TRIP COSTS:
1. Portland parking can run $10-40 for 24 hours. Park in the open lot right across from the CAT building, or in nearby Ocean Gateway Garage, where cars enter around 10 Middle Street (it can cost $40 or more for 24hours).
Other parking options may include these:
Not that much further away is the county courthouse garage 871-8275 @6 blocks away.  On Newburyport st at rear of police station, entrance on federal st.  $18/max daily. 6-9 ft restriction.  Pay machine on way out.  $1.25 half hour.  Lots of space weekends, not sure about weekdays.

 Casio bay garage 774-8653 max $40. Adjacent to Casio bay lines ferry terminal. $40 max day.

 Custom house square garage 774-2203 @5 blocks corner of pearl and fore st.

 Also fisherman’s wharf parking lot 773-6649 5 blocks away.  202 commercial st @chandlers wharf. $10/day, $3/hr.

 Portland fish pier lot 874-2842 @6 blocks away 350 commercial st at center st.  Parking $8/day but very few spaces on weekdays.
Spring st garage 874-2842 $21 daily rate 20-25 minute walk.  On spring st between high and center street.

 The following map shows how high Portland parking prices are getting (click on the map image to enlarge it, then press ESC key to return). Our meeting spot is just right of the red icon, just below the $20 badge, at that little CAT building, near the upper right corner of the map. I opened Parkopedia and asked for parking from 1pm tomorrow for 25hours, and got these parking prices within walking distance of that CAT building. The $20 Thames Street Lot is the one which is about to undergo reconstruction within a day or two, and getting in there for $10 or $20 may be impossible tomorrow. Take a look at the options. Get there a few minutes early, drive around and check them out tomorrow. If anybody finds a good parking solution, please call me to share it with the group.

2. Rodd Grand Yarmouth Hotel, group discount rate about $109PT (109 Canadian dollars, plus tax). You do your own hotel reservation please (1-800-565-7633). You must mention our group name, "Marine Survey #17", to get this rate.
3. Ferry round-trip group discounted price is 25% off the posted list prices (list price is about $141 round-trip) (please call 1-902-742-6800 to buy your own ticket/s, and request discount for the "Marine Survey #17" group -- have your passport and credit card handy during this call). List prices are shown at the following website...
OUR TRIP LAST YEAR:

Special thanks to Peter Harrison for this wonderful skuas plate in his 1983 classic, "Seabirds: An Identification Guide" (click on this image to enlarge it, and then press ESC to return). All-dark Pomarine Jaegers (#199b) can be confusing, but compared with skuas, they are slimmer, less broad wings, with longer tail section (even without the central tail feathers). Skuas seem broader winged, bulkier, short-tailed, with more white in the flash, at the base of the primaries, by comparison....
Click on image to enlarge it. Press ESC key to return.



BINGO! -- Great Skua

Ah, finally, the FIRST Great Skua of the season in North America!
That RED point, reported from a shrimp boat at 5pm Sept.20th 2017, 6km off the NE coast of Newfoundland...
The BLUE points are earlier reports, more than 30 days ago, most/all going back years and decades, not from this season...


Hopefully we will get one down in the GOM for our Sept.29-30 trip.

And indeed, two skuas flew by Baccaro Point (Baccaro Seawatch. | Cape Sable Birding) near the southernmost tip of Nova Scotia (eBird Checklist – Baccaro Peninsula--Baccaro Point, Nova Scotia – Thu Sep 21, 2017) one day later, on Sept.21 around 7am in heavy weather (photo by Mark Dennis)... hopefully heading west for a rendezvous with us on Sept.29-30!...


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