RESULTS of our Oct.7-8 trip: Working DRAFT as of Oct.21, 2018.
SUMMARY:
Yes, we got Great Skuas again, several years in a row on this ferry route.
We had the satisfaction of digging-them-out under difficult circumstances.
List(s), photos, eBird links, and other details coming in next few days, etc.
Bad weather delayed our Sept.22-23 GOM skua trip to Oct.6-7 and more bad weather then delayed that weekend trip one more day, until Oct.7-8 Sunday-
Monday, causing most of our birders to drop-out, but the smaller remaining team of 3 still had a successful trip, on the last ferry runs of 2018 on that route (and perhaps the last ferry runs on that long 212-mile route forever, since its US port will probably change in 2019 from Portland to BarHarbor).
Tom Robben
Team: Severin Uebbing (left), Alex Lin-Moore & Tom Robben (aka LIS Seawatch) on camera ...
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| S.Uebbing on left, and A.Lin-Moore on right |
Alex did a great job with 15-minute interval eBird recordings, such as the following three eBird checklists, which are the relevant ones for the three stercorarridae of interest (skuas #1, #2 and #3 below).
THREE SKUAS OF INTEREST:
We saw three possible skuas (most of their photos were taken at great distance, although each bird was initially seen closer to the ship with binoculars, before they flew away), the first one of which ("skua #1") was most likely a dark morph Pomarine Jaeger, POJA. Note that 100% certain ID is not common with many skuas in the field, for multiple reasons (including the remote possibility of Stercorarius antarcticus
eBird Checklist – Tucker's Town, Bermuda, BM – Sun Apr 27, 2003 ), but the ID of the following three birds is very probably correct.
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Skua #1. Probably a POJA -
https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S49033035 for Sun Oct.7 at 3:27pm Leg IV.
<< Please review the eBird photos of this probable Pomarine Jaeger, dark morph...
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Here is skua#1, probably a dark morph Pomarine Jaeger. Photo thanks to Severin Uebbing.
The white pattern in upper primaries (in yellow circle) is more dark-morph-Pomarine-like than skua-like.
Scroll way down to see several typical dark Pomarine Jaeger photos.
And the bird's entire dorsal surface in this photo is uniformly dark, almost black, a la Pom. |
But note this similar-looking very dark skua from Sweden 2018 October 23, accepted as a Great Skua...
eBird Checklist – Laholm, SE (56,462, 12,915), Hallands län [SE-13], SE – Tue Oct 23, 2018 – 3 species
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Skua #3. Very Probable GRSK -
https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S49050909 for Mon Oct.8 at 11:04am. Click here to see a short video for this bird #3...
https://youtu.be/NEPY-dOi_mc << video for bird #3.
but the still photos in the eBird checklist S49050909 show much more color, as in this photo...
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| Skua #3. Photo thanks to Severin Uebbing |
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Skua #2. Very Probable GRSK -
https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S49033205 for Sun Oct.7 at 4:03pm Leg VI. See the 5 photos of this bird #2 directly below, in this post. And the FB discussion of this bird #2 at:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/357272384368972/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/357272384368972/permalink/1853829381379924/
Here are five photos of an interesting but very distant and highly cropped/magnified Great Skua (skua #2) from Sunday Oct7 at 4:03pm (all times are US Eastern Time EDT)...
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| This distant skua #2 (dorsal view) photographed by Severin Uebbing on 2018-10-07 at 4:03pm EDT in GOM, in US waters. |
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| This is the same bird, its ventral/under surfaces photographed by Alex Lin-Moore |
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| The same bird, photo by Alex Lin-Moore. |
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| The same bird, photo by Alex Lin-Moore. |
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| The same bird, photo by Alex Lin-Moore. A long-winged look for a skua. |
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PRELIMINARY FIRST LIST for the whole trip, and it may be revised:
This is a combined list for two days, Portland to Yarmouth & back, 6hours (212miles) each way:
Cloudy, 55-60F both days. SST water temp mid-GOM was 54.5F
Canada Goose - 40
Common Eider - 69
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| Eiders well offshore in GOM Oct.8th. Photo from 4k video by T.Robben. |
White-winged Scoter - 8
Black Scoter - 5
Surf/Black Scoter - 1
duck sp. - 42
Rock Pigeon - 8
Mourning Dove - 19
Spotted Sandpiper - 1
Great Skua - 2 (skuas #2 & #3).
Pomarine Jaeger, Dark Morph - 1 (aka Skua #1).
Pomarine Jaeger - 33 *
Parasitic Jaeger - 1
jaeger sp. - 7
Black Guillemot - 4
Atlantic Puffin - 9 *
Black-legged Kittiwake - 5 *
Ring-billed Gull - 75
Herring Gull - 222
Great Black-backed Gull - 142
gull sp. - 4
Red-throated Loon - 1
Common Loon - 12
Northern Fulmar - 16 *
Cory's Shearwater - 4
Great Shearwater - 440
Sooty Shearwater - 5 *
shearwater sp. - 1
Northern Gannet - 122
Double-crested Cormorant - 59
Great Blue Heron - 6
Osprey - 1
Blue Jay - 4
American Crow -31
Northern Mockingbird - 1
European Starling - 7
White-throated Sparrow - 6
Song Sparrow - 2
House Sparrow - 8
passerine sp. - 30
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Note that our photos of these several October-molting skuas/jaegers strongly suggests the birds to be northern-hemisphere-breeding birds, because of molt timing, either Great Skuas or Pomarine Jaegers:
Skua Primary Moult Scores, Skua Primary Moult Scores
Any skua molting in October is very likely to be a Great Skua, an adult Great Skua just a few months off its Northern European breeding grounds.
south polar skua molts when? - Google Search
Ageing and moult in Catharacta skuas - surfbirds.com
Some observations of South Polar Skuas (Catharacta maccormicki) on Georges Bank
Timing and duration of primary molt in Northern Hemisphere skuas and jaegers | The Auk
36(1) p0071-p0073.pdf << S.Howell 2005 article on skua species.
Our actual 212-mile 6-hour route from Yarmouth, NS to Portland, ME on 2018-10-08...
Post script: On Oct.16th the town of Bar Harbor ME voted in favor of the CAT ferry using its terminal, which will probably replace the Portland terminal next year, in 2019...
Yarmouth ferry step closer to Bar Harbor move after council vote | CBC News.
Lease for CAT ferry approved - Mount Desert Islander.
Bar Harbor council vote confirms what we pretty much knew: The Cat isn't coming back to Portland - Portland Press Herald.
It seems that next year this route will become BarHarbor to Yarmouth, and replace this much longer Portland to Yarmouth route! In which case these were the last two days of this long route!! So the GOM crossing distance will get shorter, about two hours shorter, while the drive up to BarHarbor will get longer, at least 3 hours longer!
An analysis of the birds seen every fifteen minutes (about every ten miles) on both Oct.7 and 8 will be compiled and available here in another few weeks.
Not all Great Skua sightings have been reported to eBird over the decades. Here are some which have, including some of our successful skua trips which were reported by various members of our teams (some were not reported to eBird because we did not have good photos of the skuas seen)...
For comparison and lots of good/close photos of Great Skuas, see the eBird reports from the Maine Audubon Bar Harbor pelagic trip three weeks earlier in the GOM (that ship pursues the skuas, unlike our public ferry)...
https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S48859037 including these two photos of the heavily marked dorsal surfaces...
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| Thanks to this photo by Griffin Richards on 20180915 S48859037 |
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| Thanks to this photo by Margaret Viens 20180915 S4885903 |
And here is another good photo of a Great Skua, thanks to Tom Johnson's photo taken in 20120821 in GOM...
SOUTH POLAR SKUA -DARK MORPH:
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| From the internet |
POMARINE JAEGERS - DARK MORPHS:
Regarding dark morph Pomarine Jaegers, they usually have a distinctive look, especially in the primaries upper surface, where the white lines all often seem separate and distinct, with little or no coalescing of the white. Will show a few photos of that here, but meanwhile google: pomarine jaeger dark morph and go to Images.
Here is a photo I took off Monterey CA on Sept.11, 2014..... quite a different look than a large skua... especially compared with the primaries in the skua photo above...
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T.Robben photo of dark morph Pomarine Jaeger 2014 Sept 11 off Monterey CA.
Many dark Pom jaegers look like this, with the white lines in their upper primaries clearly separated. |
Here are two more dark morph Pomarine Jaegers, showing a similar look, including an immature below...
And this beautiful adult dark morph Pomarine Jaeger from AllAboutBirds (https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Pomarine_Jaeger/media-browser-overview/40624151)...
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PLANS:
NOTICE: This Oct.7-8 trip replaces the Oct.6-7 trip which replaced the Sept.22-23 trip, all because of weather.
Our Oct.6-7 trip just got
postponed one day to Oct.7-8, Sunday-Monday. This is the status, as of Oct.5, 2018 at 10am.
STATUS UPDATE as of Sept.21 at 1pm : This Sept.22-23 trip is being POSTPONED two weeks, since the ferry company cancelled all Saturday 9/22 trips due to high waves.
October 6-7 is the new/replacement date for this trip.
All the Sept.22-23 dates in this website will soon be replaced with Oct.6-7.
We still have a few openings.
Would greatly appreciate a few more sea-birders with top BIF photography skills.
SOME OTHER SKUA TRIPS:
On Sept.15th the Bar Harbor Pelagic Trip recorded four or more Great Skuas, in the GOM Gulf Of Maine...
2018 Bar Harbor Pelagic Trip Report | Maine Audubon << trip report from 20180915.
Birding News | @ABA Maine Audubon Pelagic 2018 << trip report on listserv.
Bar Harbor Pelagic 2018 << their trip plan document.
Birding USA: Maine Audubon Pelagic trip September 20, 2014 on Vimeo << 2014 video in GOM.
Our goal is to PHOTOGRAPH as many skuas along this long 420-mile round trip as possible (with the best possible photos), to increase our knowledge about those species in this GOM area (including locations, species, age, molt, behavior, etc.), and to SURVEY the locations and numbers of all seabirds and whatever other lifeforms we can see along this 210 mile transect.
The time and location of this trip is designed to target skuas, primarily Great Skuas. We get small numbers of several other seabirds, but this is mainly a skua trip, and a great excuse to haul a long route across the wide Gulf Of Maine, even in some wild weather (this is a large super stable ship and only the most extreme weather stops its runs).
In full disclosure, this is a public ferry ride across 210 miles (each way, on our round trip) of the GOM where skuas could be anywhere, and often are. The fun for this trip is trying to spot/ID/photograph them (and other good seabirds) as we pass through this long corridor, and scan hundreds of square miles of usually windy water. Its an acquired taste, and some people may not enjoy this form of birding. Fortunately some of the birds seem to parallel the ship fairly closely, and we benefit by that, but generally some birds are not that close to the ship, so seabird ID skills are at a premium (and so are BIF birds-in-flight photography skills, and this is a challenging environment to practice and sharpen those skills).
Last year on this trip we had (at least) 3 out of the following 5 species, as we crossed the Gulf Of Maine 212 miles each way (a few Antarctic/Brown Skuas have been recorded in the North Atlantic, but there is no way currently to ID that species confidently in the field, imho, without DNA analysis or the bird in the hand)...
This classic plate is thanks to Peter Harrison 1983, his seabird Bible: "Seabirds: An Identification Guide".
Click to enlarge, and then press ESC key to return.
Here is our target species, two Great Skuas (Stercorarius skua), photographed by Michael J. Good on Sept.12, 2015 in the Gulf of Maine. Note the left bird showing the dark cap, the protruding head and neck, the broad wings and bulky body, the short wide tail, the warm coloration, the large amount of white in the wing-flash, the molting wing, including perhaps a slightly short P10 growing in, plus a hint of the golden markings on the back of the right bird.... very similar to one of the skuas we saw in 2017 in mid-GOM...
If you want to join us this year, 2018, on Sept.22-23, see the right sidebar for information ==>>>
Note the unusual timing of this 24-hour round trip:
-- We depart Portland ME in early afternoon 9/22, for a six-hour GOM crossing.
-- We sleep in a good hotel in Yarmouth overnight.
-- We depart Yarmouth NS in early morning 9/23 returning to Portland ME around 1pm.
Our trip, Portland - Yarmouth, is perhaps the longest ferry route in North America. Note how it dwarfs the arm of Cape Cod in the lower left, and how exposed it is to the open ocean, which is good for our trip, since Great Skuas are often far offshore, usually in the middle of this route, at the farthest offshore points ...
A basic question is what birds and other lifeforms are in these waters? And we are lucky that there is a long ferry route giving us access to these otherwise remote waters, so we can go out and see what is there.
Unusually high waves predicted in GOM for Sept.22, 2018 caused the ferry company to cancel all GOM trips that day...
www.windy.com
Waves:
Winds:
Marine Forecast for Sept.22-23, 2018 for GOM Gulf Of Maine (as of 20180921 at 4pm):
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.SYNOPSIS FOR NEW ENGLAND WATERS...A high pressure ridge will
shift SE of the waters tonight ahead of an approaching cold
front. The front will pass SE across the waters later tonight
into Sat, then stall S of the region Sat night through Mon.
Strong high pressure will build over the Gulf of Maine Mon, then
shift E of the waters Mon night into Tue. A warm front will lift
N across the area Tue night. Another cold front will approach the
coast on Wed and move offshore Wed night.
ANZ800-220900-
Gulf of Maine to the Hague Line-
431 PM EDT Fri Sep 21 2018
TONIGHT
S to SW winds 20 to 30 kt.
Seas building to 6 to 11 ft.
SAT
N to NW winds 20 to 30 kt, diminishing to 5 to 15 kt.
Seas 6 to 10 ft, subsiding to 3 to 6 ft.
SAT NIGHT
N to NE winds less than 10 kt. Seas 3 to 5 ft.
SUN
W to SW winds less than 10 kt, becoming W. Seas subsiding
to 1 to 3 ft.
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