If you follow this blog, you have probably read about my "pelagic" birding expeditions. Pelagic birding means that we are out on a boat in the ocean looking for birds that live way out there. Our friends Paul and Anita Guris run the trips through their side-hustle company called SeeLife Paulagics ( a nice play on words). They run about a dozen trips every year in winter and summer. I didn't think I could make the summer trip this year due to work schedule but at the last minute, my calendar opened up.
I took a vacation day and boarded the boat on Sunday night at 10 PM. The trip started out great. The weather was delightful, the stars were bright, the Perseid Meteor shower was in full swing. I slept a little bit but mostly watched the shooting stars and the Milky Way until about 4 AM when the boat came to a stop 85 miles off of the NJ coast. In the dark waters, we could see squid and flying fish under the spot lights and then a few birds flew past the boat in the pre-dawn light. Leach's Storm Petrels are most active at night. Our best chance to see them is at first light. We were not disappointed.
Leach's Storm Petrel at first light
Although we were out past the continental shelf, we were not alone. This ship was the backdrop for our first whale species of the day - Cuvier's Beaked Whale.
Cuvier's Beaked Whale
The birding and whale watching heated up quickly with many Band-rumped and Wilson's Storm Petrels following our boat.
Wilson's Storm Petrel
You can see the Pilot Whales heading toward the boat. The storm petrels are not afraid of the whales and stay on the surface of the water looking for food.
Pilot Whales
The whales came close to the boat. They didn't seem to mind us.
Me and the whales
Many of the whales were resting on the surface. They call this "logging" because they whales look like logs floating on the surface. If you listen closely, you can hear them breathing in this video.
We saw over 200 Pilot Whales by the end of the day. The ocean currents often carry seaweed from far away lands like Africa and South America. We often find Bridled Terns sitting on the floating debirs. Here is an adult that found a tree at sea.
Bridled Tern
The tern allowed the 100 foot boat to approach but then took off.
Bridled Tern
This "weed line" is a favorite for fisherman since it attracts fish that feed on the critters that live in the sea weed. We took the opportunity to investigate the hidden life by scooping up the Sargassum seaweed. We found a bunch of crazy life forms.
Sargassum Weed
This is the Sargassum crab which is completely camouflaged. We put the creatures into a little aquarium so that we could all get good looks and photos before returning them to the sea.
Sargassum Crab
Can you see the File Fish in this photo? Another camouflage specialist.
File Fish
This Jack fish is the opposite of camouflaged.
Young Jack
This is a jellyfish called By-the-Wind Sailor. It floats on the open ocean.
By-the-Wind Sailor
The best find in the net was this weird looking creature. It is a Sea Swallow. It is in the same family as a clam but doesn't have a shell. This mollusk is one of the only creatures that can eat a Man-of-War jellyfish. Man-of-Wars have a potent sting that can kill a person. The Sea Swallow becomes just as deadly when it has eaten the jellyfish. I was careful not to touch the creature as I moved it into position for the photograph. I swear it's looking at me. Creepy.
Sea Swallow
As I said, the weed line attracts fish like Mahi-Mahi that feed on the smaller fish that are feeding on the jellyfish, shrimp and crabs in the weed. As luck would have it, a few of the guys brought fishing rods along. We landed 4 Mahi-Mahi. Here is one jumping as it was reeled in.
I helped reel one in and was rewarded with a filet to take home. Yum.
I've been on many pelagic trips off of New Jersey and seen some amazing birds, whales, dolphins and other sea creatures. There is one bird that I haven't seen - the White-faced Storm Petrel. This bird has eluded me for years. The bird is very uncommon but is seen almost every year - just not on the day that I'm out there. My luck changed on this trip. Someone shouted - "this might be a white faced" and sure enough, we all saw the diagnostic Kangaroo hopping bird. It was indeed the White-faced Storm Petrel! I tried to get a few photographs.
White-faced Storm Petrel
You can see the white face on the bird. You can probably also imagine that the bird just hopped off of the water where the splash is but photos do not do this bird justice so I tried to take a few videos. Taking videos with my big camera is challenging. You'll have to endure the shake but I think you can see the Kangaroo hop.
At last, my curse was broken. Little did we know that this would not be the only sighting of the day. We found 2 more in the same area as the first bird. Most trips find 1 at most. We already had 3 and then we found 10 more for a total of 13 White-faced Storm Petrels. I think that might be a record for New Jersey. Crazy.
Most of the time on these trips, we get a burst of excitement and then hours of nothing. Not on this trip. Between storm petrel sightings, we saw a pod of Atlantic Spotted Dolphins who played with the boat.
No rest for the weary. With many eyes on board staring out at the ocean, we find a lot of creatures that break the water's surface with fins. We found 2 shark species. One was a Great Hammerhead which is easy to identify as it swam past the boat. The other had a large dorsal fin but never came close to the boat for identification. Another fin popped up. This time it wasn't a shark fin but a Mola Mola. These freaky creatures look like giant man-hole covers with long fins on top and bottom.
Mola Mola
They often float at the surface on their sides to absorb the warmth of the sun - hence the common name of Ocean Sunfish.
The most common fish of the day was Flying Fish. We saw hundreds or thousands of these as they flew away from the boat. It is amazing to watch them fly for hundreds of feet before crashing back into the water. I managed to capture this photo.
Flying Fish
Our last creature of the day was a lifer for our host Anita - Humpback Whale. We spotted a mother and calf about 30 miles from shore. As we approached, the whales were under the water but we could clearly see the mother's white flippers.
Humpback Whale underwater
Mom and calf were quite comfortable near the boat. You can see junior in the center. Mom is so big that only her blow hole is visible in the photo.
Humpback Whales
What a great day! I'm afraid to go out again and be disappointed. LOL.
Out to see again on Saturday night headed to the blue Gulf Stream waters in search of birds. Calm seas and calm winds were a mixed blessing for birding. As you can imagine, the calm seas are good for the birders but the calm winds are not great for sea birds. Pelagic birds like petrels depend on the wind to whirl around the seas.
We lucked out with Black-capped Petrels on the trip. We saw at least two. Both were sitting on the water and also lazily flying around the boat. This is a master flyer. You can pick it out by the clean black cap (hence the name).
Black-capped Petrel
I've never seen one sitting on the water before. Incredible.
Black-capped Petrel
The bird flew pretty close to the boat.
Black-capped Petrel
Black-capped Petrel
We saw plenty of other birds including many Great Shearwaters. Notice the difference between this bird and the Petrel above. The cap on the Shearwater is much bigger.
Greater Shearwater
Here is one of them taking a bath.
Greater Shearwater
We also saw 3 species of whales including these Pilot Whales.
Pilot Whales
And this Hammerhead Shark cruising the surface. Yikes.
Hammerhead Shark
But the best show of the day was watching the Spotted Dolphins. These guys were amazing. We first saw them in the distance but they were hard to miss. They were jumping so far out of the water. Check out this photos. I drew an arrow from the launch site to show you how far out of the water this dolphin flew.
Here they are a little closer to the boat. 3 in the air at a time.
Look how happy this guy looks flying through the air.
Here they are playing in the wake of the boat. There were a dozen of them bouncing around. Fun stuff.
We missed the main target bird. A few people saw one of the White-faced Stormpetrel but all I saw was a bird zip through my binoculars and disappear into the vast sea. Sigh. Still a good trip.
I went out on another pelagic birding trip yesterday with SeeLife Paulagics in hopes of seeing some offshore birds. We left Wildwood Crest aboard the Atlantic Star at 10 PM Sunday night and made it 100 miles offshore to the edge of the continental shelf by 4 AM. The seas were calm, the sky was bright blue and the temperature was perfect.
We were greeted by Leach's, Band-rumped and Wilson's Stormpetrels in the early morning. These are little birds that can smell fish guts and shark liver oil from miles away (that's what we use as chum). Here is Band-rumped in flight.
Band-rumped Stormpetrel
Here is the Band-rumped picking at the chum.
Band-rumped Stormpetrel
This is Wilson's. I know, it looks exactly like the Band-rumped. The only way that I can tell the two apart is by the way the Wilson's feet drag out behind the tail when they fly. This is because their legs are a little bit longer than the Band-rumped. Who ever figured that out?
Wilson's Stormpetrel
Here is the Wilson's with a tasty morsel of shark liver. He actually looks happy. Yuck.
Wilson's Stormpetrel with chum
We were all hoping for another type of Stormpetrel called White-faced but we didn't see one all day. We did have a few unexpected sightings but not the avian type. These were the cretaceous type. The trip leaders saw a whale blow in the distance so we headed over to get closer. Even at a distance, the leaders knew what type of whale it was. They could tell by the blow. Notice that the spray isn't going straight up but it is shooting out to the left (away from the camera). That indicates Sperm Whale. Point of interest - Right Whales are named "Right" because they blow to the right.
Sperm Whale blow
Sperm Whales eat giant squid that they find at the bottom of the sea. We were in 6000 feet of water. This fellow took a deep breath and headed down just as we approached. You can tell that they are going deep when you see the giant fluke rise up into the air like this.
One Sperm Whale sighting is amazing but as we turned our attention to the other side of the boat, we saw 6 more whales blowing to the left. Wow. We were actually in the midst of a pod of females and calves! I tried video where you can see 2 whales diving.
I know, I know - "whoooaaa". I wanted to provide commentary but when they dove, all I could say is whoooaaaa.
Whales weren't the only mammal surprise. We also encountered 2 pods of dolphins that are rare for the area. These are called Pantropic Spotted Dolphins and are usually found much farther south than Jersey. Boy did they put on a show. No video, but I got some pretty good photos. They really like to jump out of the water.
Pantropic Spotted Dolphins
They also like to play in the wake of the boat.
Jumping the wake!
They got so close to the boat that you could see the spots that give them their name. You can also see that they are pink too.
Pink and spotty
This one got so close that you can see his exhale bubble trail underwater.
Exhale
And then immediately inhale when the blow hole broke the surface of the water.
Inhale
The dolphin and whale show would have made the trip for me. We could have gone back to the dock at this point which we kind of started to do. After all, it takes 6 hours to get out here and 6 hours to get back to Wildwood. On our way back, we found some more good birds like Cory's Shearwater. We probably saw 20 or so. This guy flew by pretty close.
Cory's Shearwater
Here is another Cory's (right, back) sitting with a Great Shearwater (left, front).
Greater and Cory's Shearwaters
This Audubon's Shearwater also put on a show close to the boat.
Audubon's Shearwater
Once again, I realize that they all look alike at first. Here is a bird that stood out from the others. This is Pomarine Jaeger in mid molt which makes him look more like a vulture. Ugly.
Pomarine Jaeger
Another bird that is still weird to see 60 miles offshore is this Red-necked Phalarope. These are shorbirds that make their living at sea. It is still hard to believe even though we see them regularly.
Red-necked Phalarope
What made this sighting even more odd is that this bird was eating a moth. How does a moth get 60 miles offshore only to be eaten by a shorebird?
Yummy, salty moth
The day was really great. Made it back to Rydal by 7 PM sun kissed, salty and pooped!
As I said in the last post - the point of the trip was to visit my uncle which we did. The bonus was to get the Boobies. But our other goal was to get Barbara up to speed on her Southern California bird list. She hasn't birded this area before so she was itching to get as many new birds as possible - and she did. She got over 20 new species even though it isn't the "birdiest" time of year out there. Here are some of Barbara's new birds.
Other birds from the boat trip include this adult Heerman's Gull which was a target bird for me. I don't know how I missed this species on previous trips. I was so excited to see the first one that I took a photo of it waaaaaaay out in the harbor just so that I had something on record. Little did I know that we would see hundreds of them during our trip. This is the only gull that has gray body to go along with the wings.
Adult Heerman's Gull
Here is another Heerman's Gull. Juveniles start out really dark gray, almost black which is pretty handsome.
Heerman's Gull
Elegant terns were also present along the coast. These are pretty interesting looking with their black crest and long orange bill. There were dozens of them resting on the beach.
Elegant Tern
This one looks like he's about to start conducting the tern orchestra. And a one, and a two. . .
Elegant Tern
Another bird that we saw from the boat was Black-vented Shearwater. Same deal as the gull - we saw one and ran around the boat deck to get a look at it and then saw about 200 more after that. Unfortunately, these birds are difficult to photograph in evening light. This is the best that I could muster.
Black-vented Shearwater
This Brandt's Cormorant was hanging out with the Masked Booby (who was perched just above).
Brandt's Cormorant
The best part about these birds are the stunning blue eyes. This is another bird that swam by us while we were on the jetty looking at the Blue-footed Boobies. Women pay money for contact lenses to get eyes like that.
Brandt's Cormorant
Speaking of the boat. Here is a photo of Diane as she was video taping the hundreds of Dolphins that surrounded our boat. What a spectacle.
Di
This is the best photo I could get of one of the dolphins.
Common Dolphin
I have one more post coming from the LA trip. Stay tuned.
