More Offshore Antics

In the last post, you read about and watched video about Offshore Bottlenose Dolphins. In this post, you will read about and watch video of a different kind of "dolphin". Until recently, North Carolina fisherman have been catching dolphin for many years but not the kind that you read about in the last post. To them, the fish is called dolphin but we know it as Mahi Mahi. The name changed so that people would know that the fisherman weren't killing the real Dolphins.

Guess who else was catching Mahi Mahi? Yup. The birders. Here we are with our catch. The captain and mate put out some lines each day. After filming the true dolphins, I headed to the back of the boat to let others get a view from the bow. All of a sudden, the rod bent and I yelled the classic "FISH ON!"  Paul grabbed the rod and reeled in the first fish.

Then another rod bent. The mate handed it to me and I reeled one in. I think the mate was impressed that I knew what I was doing.

Me and Paul caught nice sized fish - 15-20 pounders but Mike and Mary caught whoppers. Here is video of the mate "gaffing" the biggest Mahi which Mary reeled in.

The mate filleted and bagged up the fish for us. We grilled some at the hotel for everyone and still had some to bring home. Its in the freezer now.

After the excitement, we were back to birding. The last day was really rough. The weather was less than cooperative. Tropical storm Bonnie was building off the coast. Wind and waves made the ride very rough every day. Many participants got seasick. Even the birds were trying to ride out the storm. This Bridled Tern tried to hang on to a paint can in the middle of the ocean.

Paint Can bird

She finally gave up and took to the wind.

Bridled Tern

This Pomarine Jaeger was happy to see the suet chunk in the waves but has a hell of a time trying to keep possession. Check out how big that wave is.

Pomarine Jaeger - big wave

 The suet chunk was also pretty big. The bird worked hard to try to swallow it as the waves rolled on.

One of the birds that is a target for pelagic trips is the Skua. These are really big birds. You can see them from a long way because they fly high over the horizon and are dark against the blue sky. When spotted, we yell "SKY BIRD!"

Sky Bird!

They look like giant seagulls. Once they find the suet, they lower the landing gear and gulp every piece that they can get to.

South Polar Skua

But even these big birds are bullied by the Jaegers. Here is a Pom trying to get the Skua to drop the grub.

Pomarine Jaeger chasing South Polar Skua

Everyone was happy to see the birds and even happier to see the dock at the end of the day. Enough rocking and rolling for the weekend.

Sea Life - Cetaceans, Fish and Birds

Our latest pelagic trip left Wildwood Crest on Friday night. What a difference from the last trip. The seas were calm and we saw a good number of birds and other sea life. Our first treat was to witness the LADEE rocket which launched from Virginia at 11:27 PM.  The entire horizon lit up and then we watched the rocket climb, climb, climb until it went out of sight.  That was really cool.

After a restless night sleep on the top deck of the 95' Atlantic Star, we had a beautiful sunrise and 3 species of storm-petrals - Wilson's which you have read about in previous posts, Leach's, and Band-rumped.  We also saw a few Shearwaters which we have seen on other trips too.  The best bird of the morning was a Pomarine Jaeger that circled the boat a few times. This is a big bird which makes it's living stealing meals from gulls and terns. The ID on this bird is that it has long tail feathers coming out of the center of the tail. You can see that on this photo of the bird trying to land on the water.

Pomarine Jeager

You can also see the long tail feathers on this photo of the bird flying past the top deck of the boat.  They just look menacing don't they?

Pomarine Jaeger

We didn't see other birds for awhile but did get to see cetaceans (whales and dolphins).  Here are a few species - Culvier's Beaked Whale, Pilot Whale,Striped Dolphin, and Common Dolphin. Here are a few photos. This is a male Cuvier's Beaked Whale. You can tell by the gray head.

Cuvier's Beaked Whale (Male)

Here is a Pilot Whale which are actually just really large dolphins and not true whales. You can ID these by the black color and bulbous head.

Pilot Whale

Striped Dolphin are pretty rare - so says our trip leader. We saw a pod of about 30 or more.

Striped Dolphin

Back to birds with another Jaeger. This one is Long-tailed Jaeger which was a life bird for me. This is a juvenile which doesn't have a long tail yet. This guy hung around for awhile before flying off.

Long-tailed Jaeger

The most unexpected bird of the day was this Bridled Tern - a southern species. This bird found a floating piece of wood to rest on. It didn't seem to mind the big boat riding past either.

Bridled Tern

The weirdest sight of the day was this Ocean Sunfish or Mola Mola which hung around the boat for awhile. This fish is shaped really funny with 2 big flippers, practically no tail and a face that looks human. The fish is really big - about the size of a Lazyboy recliner - and weighs about 600 pounds. Click on the photo for a larger view to see what I mean about the face.

Mola Mola

Here it is looking up at me from beneath the water. It freaked me out a little bit.

Mola Mola

The other fish of the day was the 30 pound Yellowfin Tuna which was caught by one of the leaders. I don't have a photo that I want to share of that. Suffice it to say that there was sushi served :-(

We returned to the dock at 5:15 PM on Sat with a bunch of new species to add to the stupid contest list, some funny stories and an image of Mola Mola staring at me. By 5:30 half the people from the boat were all in our cars and off to chase another bird for the contest - Lark Sparrow which was seen by all. 

Part of the fun of these trips is meeting new people and seeing them on subsequent trips. By the time the boat pulls into the dock, you feel like you had a shared life experience with the other participants. You even feel like you can invite them to dinner or to stay as a guest in your house, which is exactly what happened.  I ended up with 3 guests which was great.