On Saturday, I went on the BBC’s deep water pelagic. A bit on the slow side on the whole, no exciting birds and very few cetaceans. Fortunately the sharks made up for it.
Some photos:
Leach’s and Wilson’s Storm-Petrels
Wilson’s
Shearwaters (mostly real)
Basking Shark
Whale Shark!
Whale Shark!
Check out Scott Spangenberg’s video!
Tiger Shark
Long-tailed Jaeger
Moon over the harbor. Apparently didn’t pick up the clouds around it.
Not going to write up a full report (will link to the BBC page when it’s online) but the overnight pelagic was quite spectacular. One of the first birds was a Great Skua and things got better from there. By midmorning of the second day, the following announcement was made: “To put things in perspective, the one day high count for White-faced Storm-Petrels in North America was 5. Set yesterday. We’re approaching 15.”
Only complaint was that I spent the first day on the upper deck and had a brutal time getting things in focus. That and I never got a good feel for the Band-rumped Storm-Petrels, only picking out 1 or 2 out of the 5. Missing some of the better landbirds (Red-headed Woodpecker and Purple Finch) wasn’t great but they were distant and only identified through photographs later.
So, some photos:
The skua
Long-tailed Jaeger (didn’t realize I had this shot until I got home), thought I only had the adjacent Parasitic.
The adjacent Parasitic
Manta Rays
Only a couple White-faced Storm-Petrel shots, up to 8 different birds are in the flickr set (along with more skuas and some phalaropes and other stuff with more common stuff to be added later).
Four life birds (Skua, storm-petrels, and Parasitic Jaeger (yes I got both skuas before I got a Parasitic)) plus state Long-tailed Jaeger.
Already can’t wait for next year!