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

2017 October 22 Gloucester pelagic trip

THIS TRIP REPORT IS STILL OPEN FOR ADDITIONAL INFO TO BE ADDED:

We had a terrific trip on Oct.22,2017 in extremely pleasant weather.
What a great group of friendly people on board. It felt like we were all enjoying the beautiful ride, as if it was a nice party, with some good birds (a wide variety of seabirds) and whales, continually throughout the trip.

SST water temperatures ranged from 57F around Race Point down to 54F in mid Stellwagen Bank.
No great rarities (we looked for Scopoli's Shearwater, Short-tailed Shearwater and Sabine's Gull, but to no avail), but a nice variety of species, and unusually good looks at several species, including Razorbill and Ocean Sunfish.
More details coming this week, both here and in Krill's NECWA site NECWA News Blog .

Here is the full GPX track of our trip (about 100 miles round trip), in blue... green circles are 15-mile diameter Christmas Bird Counts circles, and the Stellwagen Bank NMS is outlined in white  (you can click on this or any image here to enlarge it, and then press ESC key to return)...


Our track, in blue, near Race Point MA....



Thanks to Wayne, Steve, "navigator" Peter and Captain Jay we studied seabirds concentrated just off Herring Cove Beach...




The white outline is the areas which had the intense seabird activity over the last two months, and we navigated the ship into those waters to study what birds were there on October 22; nothing rare but lots of terns and jaegers...



Race Point...


The Race Point Lighthouse (photo by Annette Pasek)...



Peter Flood worked with Captain Jay to carefully navigate us in close to the Race Point waters which have been so productive and active. Here is a photo of some of the 80 people onboard, including Peter Flood and Steve Mirick on the right side of the photo, both looking to the right...



We did a 5-minute plankton tow in these waters off Race Point. The sample will be analyzed and results reported here in a few weeks. Hundreds perhaps thousands of 0.5mm plankton (probably some copepod species) were seen jumping around the collection bottle (see the photo below, by David Zomick), but fewer than last year. We will make a comparison and publish it here in December...


A simplified draft food web will also be proposed here next month, for Stellwagen waters, for experts to review and correct, etc.




One of the best photos from our trip, taken by Melissa Sovay.... proving that we had some great views of birds and whales, along with some calm waters during part of our day...

Great Shearwater  photo by Melissa Sovay.
You can click on this photo and enlarge it further, and then press ESC key to return.

Here are four photos by Eduardo Del Solar (delsolar.org) showing a Parasitic Jaeger pursuing Common Terns until it steals a fish from one of them...













Jim Sweeney constructed the official trip report for bird species, and broke the trip into three segments -- thank you Jim!! Click on the following links to see the 3 lists of birds seen:

eBird Checklist – Gloucester Harbor to Stellwagen Bank, Massachusetts – Sun Oct 22, 2017 – 11 species (+2 other taxa)

eBird Checklist – Stellwagen Bank NMS, Massachusetts – Sun Oct 22, 2017 – 28 species (+1 other taxa)

eBird Checklist – Stellwagen Bank to Gloucester Harbor, Massachusetts – Sun Oct 22, 2017 – 14 species (+1 other taxa)


Here is a summary matrix corresponding to Jim's eBird checklists (numbers are all offshore, including the songbirds). The 3rd column of numbers is from the end of the trip, from Stellwagen Bank back in to the dock in Gloucester:




"Misses" (none of these were seen) included phalaropes and storm-petrels.


And here are a few trip lists contributed to eBird by others on the boat that day:

eBird Checklist – Stellwagen Bank NMS, Massachusetts – Sun Oct 22, 2017 – 31 species (+6 other taxa)  with photos.

eBird Checklist – Stellwagen Bank--NW Corner, Massachusetts – Sun Oct 22, 2017 – 28 species (+1 other taxa)  with photos.


eBird Checklist – Stellwagen Bank--NW Corner, Massachusetts – Sun Oct 22, 2017 – 21 species (+1 other taxa)

eBird Checklist – Stellwagen Bank--NW Corner, Massachusetts – Sun Oct 22, 2017 – 23 species (+4 other taxa)


And for comparison here was what was seen at Race Point this same day, FROM LAND...
eBird Checklist – Race Point, Massachusetts – Sun Oct 22, 2017 – 21 species

and at Hatches Harbor nearby, the day before...
eBird Checklist – Hatches Harbor, Provincetown, Massachusetts – Sat Oct 21, 2017 – 46 species

and at Herring Cove Beach nearby, the day after...
eBird Checklist – Herring Cove Beach, Massachusetts – Mon Oct 23, 2017 – 15 species


Non-avian life forms seen during the trip included:
===============
20+ Common Dolphins
10 Humpback Whales
1 Minke Whale
2 Gray Seals
1 Ocean Sunfish (Mola mola)
===============


We enjoyed a good view of a Mola mola (see photo below by David Zomick). Click here   NECWA - NEOSunfish  and scroll down to the NEOSunfish section to learn more about sunfishes. 



 more info on our oct.22 trip results will be added here over the next few days...




TRIP PREPARATION:


STELLWAGEN PELAGIC:

Ocean Exploration Cruise with Krill Carson.
October 22 from Gloucester MA. 8-hour trip.
Seabirds, whales, & marine science.

Liability waiver will be required. Please print, sign, date and return this document...
PLEASE USE THIS OCTOBER WAIVER, NOT THE JUNE WAIVER... thank you!


#1 Target Species: Sabine's Gull. 20% likely. We had 1 last year.
MEETING TIME: 7:15am Sunday October 22.
MEETING LOCATION: Gloucester, Mass. at 63 Rogers Street (7 Seas Whale Watch pier).
TRIP COSTS: Your costs will be about $90 for adults. You must register & pay at this webpage:
OUR EQUIVALENT AUTUMN TRIP LAST YEAR:
October 22, 2016 OEC: Sabine's Gull YES

Krill Carson's blog for this trip and other NECWA trips:
NECWA News Blog

Here was the offer for this 2017 October 22 trip:


2017 Sept. 29-30 GOM Pelagic Trip RESULTS

"SKUA SEARCH" : Our annual cross-GOM search for skuas


NEWS:
Four more skuas were seen in this general area on Oct.4th, including one Great Skua and one South Polar Skua.


TRIP SUMMARY:
The top goal of this trip was to search for and find skuas, and we were successful, with four or five skua sighting on Sept.30th, at least 3 of which were different birds, spanning both species (2 Great and 1 SouthPolar were identifiable) which can be expected in northern hemisphere waters (excluding the other two species, Chilean and Brown Skuas). This report will emphasize those skuas, although many other seabirds were also seen.  Links to our eBird checklists are available below; scroll way down. 

 Here are two photos (by Bill Asteriades) of our two different identifiable Great Skuas, a light one and a dark one. This light bird (well-seen through binoculars -- including some gold streaking/tones on the mantle & scapulars) was a warmer color than this photo shows... 
From this photo alone, this is a skua, but not 100% sure it is a Great Skua. When combined with detailed binocular observations (further down this blog), however, this bird is a Great Skua, and Confirmed as such by eBird. 

and the bird below is a dark Great Skua, which was molting. It is our last skua sighting of the trip and the sharpest Great Skua photo of the trip (the auto-focus overcoming the distracting waves). Note the gold streaking on the back (mantle and scapulars, distinguishing it from a South Polar Skua)...


This dark Great Skua was at the west side of our planned yellow oval target zone, at longitude W 67.6:

Yellow oval is our planned target zone for skuas, based on our many trips on this route.
Green circles are Christmas Bird Count 15-mile diameter circles.
You can click on this map to enlarge it, and then press ESC key to return.
This blue line is our actual GPS-logged 212-mile westbound route from Yarmouth NS to Portland ME on Sept.30, 2017.

This is our ferry, with the yellow oval showing our open viewing area, on both sides.


eBIRD CHECKLISTS FROM OUR 9/30/2017 TRIP:

Nova Scotian waters  (from 809am ADT = 709am EDT):
eBird Checklist – Portland, Maine - Yarmouth, Nova Scotia Ferry (NS waters), Nova Scotia – Sat Sep 30, 2017

Maine waters  (from 1010am ADT = 910am  EDT):
eBird Checklist – Ferry Trip - Yarmouth, NS to Portland, ME, Maine – Sat Sep 30, 2017



DETAILED TRIP REPORT FOLLOWS  for September 29-30 trip:
Ornithologists' knowledge of skuas continues to evolve, so we often have to say "probable".

Full details will be published here and on eBird, by Bill Asteriades and myself.
But here is a preliminary DRAFT summary of birds seen Sept. 29 & 30 by the following team...
William Asteriades (CT).
Charles Avenengo (RI).
Eduardo delSolar (MA).
Margaret Hodgkins (IL).
Richard Hodgkins (IL).
Tom Robben (CT).
Joe Wallace (NY).

We have photos of most of the best birds (thanks to the long-distance photo work of W.Asterides, E.delSolar and R.Hodgkins), and the most pertinent photos will be published here.
Two counts are shown next to each species below. The first number is for Friday 9/29 (limited to first 3 hours, due to sunset, from Portland to mid-GOM -- we departed Portland dock around 15:25 = 3:25pm EDT = 4:25pm ADT), and the second number is for Saturday 9/30 (full 6 hour trip from Yarmouth to Portland).
This list is now being circulated to make sure the entire team has provided their input, and additionally the full sectory-by-sector transect survey count will also be published (based on this raw data which is being assembled from audio notes:  **20170929-30 GOM pelagic ferry currently under construction ), along with a map of the track we followed (see below).  It will take a few more days to do all this trip documentation....
The more interesting crossing was Saturday Sept.30th, departing Yarmouth dock at 7:10am EDT (8:10am ADT Atlantic time), lasting 6hr15min, covering 212 miles dock-to-dock.

SKUA BACKGROUND:
The 3 species of jaegers are sometimes included in the group called Skuas, but by Skua we mean only the large skuas, of which we currently recognize four species: Great Skua (the only one breeding in the Northern Hemisphere), South Polar Skua, Chilean Skua and Brown (aka Antarctic) Skua (and its several subspecies). The last two species have almost never been recorded in the northern hemisphere, so they are rarely considered for field ID purposes in New England waters.

SKUA SUMMARY on Sept.30,2017:
We saw several characteristic skuas off Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. Having seen a lot of skuas, the birds which I saw were all unambiguously skuas, not jaegers or anything else. Two were viewed close to the ship (#2 & #3) and shortly after that they were photographed at a distance as they flew away. We had clear fairly close views of those two, including focusing on their mantle/scapular areas (from our 30-foot high viewing locations). Two skuas (#1 and #4) were viewed only at a distance, the second one (#4) mostly behind the ship.

  • #1:   8:26am EDT (9:26am ADT)  one skua sp. not seen by all, and so distant that it is difficult to distinguish species/genus, because distant photos are ambiguous. This bird may or may not have flown-in surreptitiously and become the following bird #2 sighted a few minutes later....
  • #2:   8:31am EDT (9:31am ADT = 12:31 GMT)  one well-seen brownish & colorful skua; warm cinnamon breast, belly & flanks; back speckled/patchy; Great Skua.  We were at LAT 43.737074,  LON -66.825441.  This was 1hr20min after leaving the Yarmouth dock (the ship cruised at 31knots outside the harbors).
  • #3:   8:51-55am EDT (9:51-55am ADT) one colorless dark gray skua, uniform coloration of dorsal surfaces, South Polar Skua. Coloration looked strikingly different from the previous 8:31am skua. Two very different looking skuas.
  • #4:   9:10-9:15am EDT (10:10-15am ADT) one distant dark skua sp. Shape, flight and white patches seen but too far away to see colors on the dark skua. This may have been skua #3, which may have trailed the ship at a distance and re-approached from the rear around 9:10am.
  • #5:   9:37am EDT (10:37am EDT = 13:37 GMT). One actively molting darker Great Skua, just west of the Hague Line (therefore, in US waters, since the Hague Line divides the GOM into US and Canadian waters).   
  •       
  • eBird CONFIRMED the identity of #2, #3, and #5. 
  • So there were at least three and possibly five different skuas within about one hour ten minutes, in the GOM waters, mostly just east of the Hague Line.   Birds #1 and #2 may be the same bird, and birds #3 and #4 may be one and the same bird.  Bird #5 was unique, and on the west side of the Hague Line.




THE NEXT FEW PARAGRAPHS ARE ABOUT THE VERY PROBABLE GREAT SKUA (at 8:31am EDT):
  • #2:  Great Skua [Stercorarius skua]  (probably Great rather than South Polar or other)   0, 1  with photos below (first 4 photos at 500mm thanks to RichardHodgkins, around 8:31am EDT Eastern Daylight time, and thanks to Margaret Hodgkins for spotting this #2 bird on the other side of the ship [possibly the same distant #1 bird Bill Asteriades spotted] and then running across the main deck to tell us to check it out).  Photos taken about 50miles west of Yarmouth, Nova Scotia in the colder waters of the Gulf of Maine (we recorded SST as 43-44F in the waters near Yarmouth, and 54F, ten degrees warmer in mid-GOM!). 
  • OPTICS:   My following comments were based not on viewing the photos but the much better views I saw through my 10x42L Canon IS image-stabilized binoculars, after I was able use the IS to lock-on to the bird (to each of the skuas) for sustained rock-solid viewing, from our 30-foot high vantage point on the starboard north side of the ship. I was also able to adjust and hold a perfect focus on the bird(s), unlike the auto-focus photographs below, which focused automatically on the ocean waves rather than the bird. I studied the bird through my binoculars when it was much closer to the ship (just as it crossed in front of the ship and continued to the right) than the following photographs (which were not taken until the birds were more distant and going away).  Other observers used high-quality binoculars and both Nikon (500mm lens) and Canon (400 & 600mm lenses) DSLR cameras.
  • OTHER TECHNOLOGY:   A small digital voice recorder was used to make note of the birds we all saw, minute-by-minute, and the key field marks as we all called them out, e.g., with the skuas. A digital wristwatch was set to the exact time (by an iPhone) at the beginning of the trip and used throughout as the official clock for observations. An infrared temperature sensing gun was used to measure SST sea surface temperature of the water. An iPhone GPS program was used to log the track of the ship.  Three walkie-talkies were used (successfully) to facilitate occasional coverage of both sides of the ship, although 90% of observations were made on the north side of the ship (with most focus in the 1-o'clock to 4-o'clock angle of view), so we could have the benefits of back-lighting. 
  • PREPARATION:   To get fully prepared for this trip, three weeks earlier on Sept.10th I spent time in the Harvard University Dept of Ornithology bird collection with curator Jeremiah Trimble doing comparisons of skins of Great Skua, South Polar Skua and dark morph Pomarine Jaegers, so I was fully reminded of the importance of the way the back (both mantle and scapulars) looks for distinguishing skuas, and looked for that when I saw the skuas on Sept.30th.   
  • OBSERVATION DETAILS:   This bird #2 was obviously a large skua, not a jaeger (we saw a dark morph Pomarine Jaeger at 10:46am, in the same light, in the same viewing angle from the ship). Large, chunky, short-tailed, big broad wings, bright white flashes at the base of the primaries (on both upper and lower surfaces), powerful in flight, heading straight for an active patch of many Gannets and some Great Shearwaters. I have seen a high number of large skuas, (especially in Iceland, off the US West Coast, off Massachusetts, and in the GOM), and this bird is the "lightest" most colorful large skua I have seen. 
  • Skua #2 was strikingly different from the typical South Polar Skua (we got a good look at one typical colorless South Polar Skua, skua #3, 25 minutes later, at 8:51-55am, and the difference between the two skuas (#2 vs #3) was striking to all observers, especially regarding the overall color of the birds --  we had a text-book A-vs-B comparison, in the same front-right quadrant, in the same lighting, in the same flying orientations).  
  • Dorsal surfaces of skua #2 were dark brown not black/gray/colorless, with some areas of lighter golden brown (see inner secondaries on top photo), and some unevenness/streaks with golden tints on the back (hinted at in photos 2 and 3 and 5 in the left scapulars). Chest and belly were light-brown cinnamon-colored (with a bit of reddish tint, not showing in the photos), flashing large white wing patches, broad wings, large and chunky with short tail, seen well from multiple angles and photographed with backlight in clear bright direct colorless morning sunlight. Mantle and scapular dorsal surfaces darker than undersides, but still brownish (see first photo below), and somewhat streaked, not colorless uniform dark gray, as the other skua was.  A very light warm colored skua.
  • SIMILAR BIRDS:   The other possibility is that this #2 is a South Polar Skua adult intermediate morph (#197b in Peter Harrison's book -- see his famous skua plate 54 below), but the non-uniform streaked back argues against that, as does the warmish tint of the breast, flanks and belly.                                         

First, this Norway video shows pretty much what our bird #2 looked like, although this is an adult and our bird probably was not...
(1) STORLABB Great Skua (Stercorarius skua) Klipp - 32 - YouTube

and for comparing still photos,  here is what Audubon Guide to North American Birds (Great Skua | Audubon Field Guide) shows as a Great Skua:



and now here following are our actual photographs (the first 4 thanks to Richard Hodgkins), which certainly look SIMILAR to the Audubon photo above (note that we got a much BETTER and closer look at this bird through binoculars as it flew in front of the ship and flew right/north, eventually leading to these distant photos, i.e., these photos ALONE may not be conclusive to ID Great Skua, but along with the binocular views we saw, in combination they are both sufficient)...

Note the deep powerful wingstroke & the golden, cinnamon brownish tint on the upper wing surfaces (right secondaries).




The following photo thanks to Bill Asteriades:


And for comparison, here are two Great Skuas photographed by Michael J. Good on Sept.12, 2015 in the Gulf of Maine. Note the similarity of plumages to our bird above, which was in strong bright sunlight and made it look lighter  (click on image to expand it, and then press ESC key to return). The left bird shows the dark cap, the protruding head and neck, the broad wings and bulky body, the short wide tail, the molting wing, including perhaps a slightly short P10 growing in.




RESEARCH IN THE KITCHEN!
For those of us who want to be sure what "cinnamon" and "ginger" should really mean, I photographed a jar of cinnamon from my kitchen(!) and this resulting photograph lost a significant amount of the darker brown and almost red tint of actual cinnamon in the jar. This warmer brown must be a difficult color for digital photo sensors to capture and reproduce. Similarly the skua photos above lost a significant amount of the warm brown and almost red tint we actually saw in the field! So the color on the skuas above in reality was warmer than those colors shown in these skua photos. Could any South Polar Skua have those warm colors (significantly warmer than the colors shown in our 5 photos above)?


This photo of the same cinnamon was closer to the color of our bird (that's real ginger on the left)...



This plate is from page 130 of Peter Harrison's landmark 1983 book, "Seabirds: An Identification Guide".
Click on image to expand. Press ESC key to return.



FIVE MORE INTERESTING PHOTOS -- skua #5 :
Here are two photos (taken at LAT 43.691618 LON -67.620683 around 9:37am EDT = 13:37 GMT, on Sept.30th 2017, from right/starboard side of ship) taken by photographer Eduardo del Solar in the 1500 shots he took on Sept.30th (see many of his other 9/30 photos at:  Gulf of Maine, CAT Ferry ).  This is clearly a large skua, with its broad wings, bulky short body relative to wings, short tail, and its bright white flashes visible on upper surfaces of wings, in the outer primaries and the coverts near the inner primaries.
Regarding the apparent dark gap in the white area which should span the primaries, the white showing in the outer wing coverts (middle of the wing) suggests active molt in the corresponding feathers at that point, namely the inner primaries (inner primaries are replaced early in the full molt cycle, so this bird breeds in the northern hemisphere).  This active molt would synchronize with the molt timing of a greater than one-year-old Great Skua. The color of this bird also suggests Great Skua.  This is very probably a Great Skua... molting its inner primaries...


This is the same one bird, with five progressively sharper photos...



And then Bill Asteriades found a 3 more photos of this same bird, but with autofocus working better...



Notice the back! The golden streaks.... a Great Skua "trademark"...



Some potentially useful references include:
Great Skua (Catharacta skua) videos, photos and sound recordings.
Click on this image to enlarge; then press ESC key to return...
The "large skuas" are numbers 1-4. The "jaegers" are numbers 5-7 (where Parasitic Jaeger is 6)...






SKUAS SEEN BY OTHER NEARBY TRIPS:
This was not our trip, but a nearby trip, 50 miles away, four days later, reporting two skua species...



eBIRD CHECKLISTS FROM OUR 9/30/2017 TRIP:

Nova Scotian waters  (from 809am ADT = 709am EDT):
eBird Checklist – Portland, Maine - Yarmouth, Nova Scotia Ferry (NS waters), Nova Scotia – Sat Sep 30, 2017 – 24 species (+4 other taxa)

Maine waters  (from 1010am ADT = 910am  EDT):
eBird Checklist – Ferry Trip - Yarmouth, NS to Portland, ME, Maine – Sat Sep 30, 2017 – 22 species (+3 other taxa)



LIST OF SPECIES WE SAW  (with numbers for September 29 & 30) :
  1. #1:  Skua spp   0, 1  Seen around 8:26am EDT (9:26am ADT).  Too distant to ID species.
  2. #2:  Great Skua [Stercorarius skua]  (probably Great rather than South Polar or other)   0, 1 
  3. #3:  South Polar Skua [Stercorarius maccormicki, adult dark morph]   0, 1  .  ( South Polar Skua Internet Bird Collection and South Polar Skua | Audubon Field Guide and South Polar Skua ) Seen at 8:51-55am EDT. An extremely dark gray to seemingly blackish individual (no warm coloration, very unlike the first skua above), uniformly dark gray colorless on upper wing surfaces (the back had no speckling, scalloping, mottling, etc), lighter neck and head, flashing large white wing patches, broad wings, large & chunky with short tail. See the photo below, taken after the bird had flown some distance away from us. Unlike the dark-morph Pomarine Jaeger seen a bit later at 10:46am (which was distinctly smaller than the South Polar Skua, the POJA had a comparatively more slender chest and silhouette, longer tail-section, and much less white flash in its wings).      
  4. #4:  Skua spp   0, 1  Seen around 9:10-9:15am EDT mostly trailing the ship at a distance, mostly high at about two hundred feet, but no good photos of this bird. White wing flashes distinguishable through 10x42L image stabilized binoculars. 
  5. #5:  Great Skua [Stercorarius skua]  (probably Great rather than South Polar or other)   0, 1
  6. dark Pomarine Jaeger   0, 1 (at 10:46am EDT).
  7. Pomarine Jaeger   1, 2
  8. Parasitic Jaeger   3, 6
  9. Jaeger spp   3, 1
  10. Wilson's Storm-petrel   0, 1
  11. Leach's Storm-petrel   0, 2
  12. Red Phalarope   1, 2
  13. Phalarope spp   3, 2
  14. Great Shearwater   30, 150
  15. Cory's Shearwater   12, 5
  16. Manx Shearwater   2, 2
  17. Sooty Shearwater   0, 2
  18. Northern Fulmar   1, 20
  19. Black-legged Kittiwake   3, 5
  20. Bonaparte's Gull   3, 0
  21. Great Black Backed Gull   5, 12
  22. Herring Gull   5, 10
  23. Gull Spp   10, 50
  24. Terns    0, 0
  25. Alcid species   2, 0
  26. Razorbill  1, 0
  27. Common Loon   3, 15
  28. Red-throated Loon  0, 1
  29. Northern Gannett   250, 300
  30. White winged Scorer   0, 18
  31. Surf Scoter   0, 5
  32. Common Eider   1, 6
  33. DC Cormorant   16, 3
  34. Canada Goose   0, 22
  35. Osprey   1, 0
  36. Kestrel  0, 1
Species were listed in an ad hoc order of convenience.
Birds observed in the 2 harbors were not included in this list.

Marine mammals (and butterflies), thanks to the expertise of Charles Avenengo....
  1. Finback whale   3, 5
  2. Atlantic white-sided dolphin    12, 20  (plus one expired dolphin floating on return trip. Fulmars in close company)
  3. Harbor porpoise     3, 1
  4. Gray seal    0, 4  (in Yarmouth harbor)
  5. Harbor seal   0, 2 (in Portland harbor)

Monarch butterfly   10, 0
Painted lady butterfly   1, 0


OTHER TRIP INFORMATION:

Over the last 5+ years we have made numerous crossings along this route (plus crossings from Bar Harbor in the 1960s-1970s), and almost all of the skuas we have found were in the area of the yellow oval, including on this trip on September 30th. This blue track is our 6-hour 212-mile route on 2017 Sept 30 from Yarmouth NS (on the right side) to Portland ME (and the green circles are 15-mile diameter Christmas Bird Count circles)...



Our team...Richard, Peg, Charles, Eduardo, Bill, Joe and Tom...

There is an open area like this on both sides of the ship, about 30 feet above water level. This is the starboard/right side. On Saturday Sept.30th most birds were viewed in the front right quadrant (on north side of ship, with backlight), mostly between "midnight and 4o'clock" using the clock metaphor for the angle of view. The first skuas were observed in this quadrant, mostly between "midnight and 3o'clock".  The skua #4 was observed more distantly, starting at 4o'clock and continuing around the back to 8o'clock, at high altitude (several hundred feet), seemingly trailing the ship, following a behavior I had observed previously with large skuas, perhaps gaining altitude to look many miles around for a grouping of birds they could harass.

Two of our several big-guns onboard: Eduardo (600mm Canon) and Richard (500mm Nikon)...


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!...


Trip Postponed Until Sept.29-30



Maine Audubon Pelagic Trip

Maine Audubon ran their GOM pelagic trip on 9/17, one week before our planned GOM trip this year.

You do not have to join FB to click on this interesting video, which you can expand to full screen...
Maine Audubon - Registration is open for our fall Pelagic... | Facebook

We are waiting to hear what birds they saw on Sept.17th, and that will be summarized here very soon.

Initial indications via eBird are that skuas were NOT seen...
eBird Checklist – Bar Harbor whale/pelagic trip--Ballpark to Petit Manan Island, Maine – Sun Sep 17, 2017 – 20 species


NO GREAT SKUAS IN NORTH AMERICA IN LAST 30 DAYS?
Will we get Great Skua on our Sept.22-23 trip across the GOM?
Zero Great Skuas have been reported in the GOM to eBird in the last 30 days, although here is a nice photo of a South Polar Skua in the GOM several weeks ago...
eBird Checklist – Brier Island--Bay of Fundy Whalewatch, Nova Scotia – Thu Aug 24, 2017 – 1 species
and here are several good photos of that SPSK...
eBird Checklist – Brier Island--Bay of Fundy Whalewatch, Nova Scotia – Thu Aug 24, 2017 – 23 species
Note the lack of  warm/cinnamon tones, the lighter nape/collar, the broad wings and short tail (broader & shorter than a jaeger)...
This photo thanks to Graham Williams...

2 Ocean Trips in the Next Few Weeks

Register now for these two upcoming marine trips:

September 22-23, 2017 from Portland ME to Yarmouth NS and back. 24 hours (420 miles). Hotel in Yarmouth.
This trip had to be rescheduled to September 29-30.

October 22, 2017 from Gloucester MA. 8 hours (100 miles round trip on the water).
Here is the waiver of liability for this 10/22 trip: Please print, sign, date and return it...
*Liability waiver for 20171022 pelagic trip v1

Both trips will focus on the ocean, seabirds, whales, plankton, marine science.
Both are memorable experiences, far offshore, beyond cell phone service and the sight of land.
For questions, registration, etc contact Tom Robben (robben99@gmail.com).
See details & instructions on this screen, in the right sidebar.






For those of you who love to go out on the ocean and search for great seabirds, here are two species  which are masters of the open ocean, with their love of endless winds and high waves (you can click on the images to enlarge each, and then press ESC key to return). Both photos below were taken far off the coast of Cape Hatteras, NC by two super seabird-photographers, Peter Flood  Peter Flood | Flickr  (the Black-capped petrel, the first photo) and Frank Mantlik (the Trindade Petrel from Brazil, the second photo)...





Our two upcoming trips will probably not find the above 2 southerly species of seabirds (although they are regular off Cape Hatteras NC), but will search for Great Skua, Sabine's Gull and other iconic seabirds (some of which visit us from their home in the extreme South Atlantic), plus Cetaceans of all kinds (whales, dolphins, porpoises), including Humpback Whales, as shown in the following great photo taken by super-photographer Peter Flood (Flickr) in the ocean waters off Massachusetts where we will visit....


So bring your binoculars and camera... it is always a fun ride!



SABINE'S GULLS THIS YEAR, ALREADY  --  THIS WEEK :

There are several Sabine's Gulls trickling down the US east coast this season, including this beauty seen in Eastport ME on August 27-31, 2017, earlier this week (by another super photographer, Chris Bartlett). Click to enlarge any of the images here, and press ESC key to return...


Plus, here is Frank Mantlik's photo of the Sabine's Gull seen in CT waters on Sept.3, 2017 (only the 2nd SAGU ever recorded in the state of CT! Congrats to Tina Green, who found it, in Westport CT). Nick Bonomo also has a few nice shots of this same bird at his Shorebirder site (Shorebirder) ...


2017 Feeding Frenzies

2017 late August:

AMAZING FEEDING FRENZY AT RACE POINT ON CAPE COD  (late August 2017) :

During the last two weeks of August (2017) the waters and beach at Race Point on Cape Cod were buzzing with thousands of shearwaters and millions(?) of fish, all in a feeding frenzy the likes of which nobody remembers seeing before! There are two videos of this, and turn up the volume of your sound level on both of these very audible videos:

LONG 3-MINUTE VIDEO BY PETER FLOOD:

Click on the next line below to see & hear Peter Flood's 3-minute video of this amazing phenomenon...

Peter Flood - Who needs a boat when you can stand on shore... | Facebook << click on this

(you do NOT have to log-in or join Facebook to view this 3-minute video).



eBird report by Andrea Bean  (click on this link, and then use back-arrow at top left to return):
eBird Checklist – Race Point Beach, Provincetown, Massachusetts – Sun Aug 27, 2017


SHORT 14-SECOND VIDEO BY ANDREA BEAN:

Very extreme activity at Race Point on Aug.27,2017...  << click to view this short video, and turn up the audio volume.  Yes, those are mostly Great Shearwaters, coming into the beach, and up on the beach to catch Atlantic Menhaden, on the beach! And within a few feet of the legs of bird photographers...


You can click on any of these images to enlarge them, and then press the ESC key to return...






Fish photos thanks to Wayne Petersen


Why so many menhaden, when for decades their numbers were down? Partly because of regulatory changes, such as this?...
Regulations Affecting Commercial Menhaden Management


Nick Bonomo's post covering this weekend...
Shorebirder: Cape Cod -- Aug 19-21, 2017 (Part 1 of 2)


There have also been a large number of shearwater and tern deaths in Cape Cod waters this year...
Cause Of Seabird Die-off Along Coast Remains Unknown | Cape Cod Chronicle



Is it possible that the fish are sick and dying, and that the birds are getting sick and dying from eating those dying fish? Menhaden are known to fall victim to various pathogens such as those mentioned below (permission was received from the publisher and author of this legendary landmark book:  for the chapter "Herrings: Family Clupeidae", by Thomas A. Munroe, 2002, in Bigelow and Schroeder's Fishes of the Gulf of Maine, Third Edition: Bruce B. Collette, Grace Klein-Macphee, Eds. 2002. 748 pp. Smithsonian Institution Press). Is it possible that the birds are dying from the toxins of the fish pathogens? Click on the image below to enlarge it, and then press ESC key to return:



I am guessing that there may be some connection between all these things:

  1. the change in menhaden regulations,
  2. the menhaden possibly getting afflicted with pathogens, 
  3. the menhaden coming into the beaches around Race Point (perhaps disoriented, debilitated, etc and easier prey for mackerel), 
  4. the shearwaters going crazy feeding on them, right onto the beach, possibly picking up the pathogens and their toxins by eating the sick fish,
  5. many shearwaters dying this year around Cape Cod, 
  6. etc.

Thoughts? Evidence??

Followup on Sept.6,2017:  Fish are being checked for pathogens, however, these fish beachings are still most likely due to predators driving them ashore.


By the way, Menhaden regulations are up for review...
AtlanticMenhadenDraftAmendment3_PublicComment.pdf

species - Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission


IF YOU WANT TO COMMENT ON ANY OF THIS, OR GET A DISCUSSION GOING, PLEASE EMAIL TO ME AT ROBBEN99@GMAIL.COM AND I WILL SET IT UP HERE.

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