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.
Now that you are introduced to St. Paul Island, I can tell you about the birds. Our guides keep tabs on birds every day so they know about all of the "common" birds and know how to track down vagrants. We were taken to see the common birds on the island including shorebirds that I was really interested in seeing. First up - Rock Sandpiper. This bird is like our Purple Sandpiper. Very common along the Alaskan coast.
Next up - Gray-tailed Tattler. This bird looks almost exactly like Wandering Tattler so we needed to hear it call to confirm the ID. We also had the luxury of studying both birds on the same log. The Gray-tailed is on the left. Wandering on the right.
Of all the shorebirds, Sharp-tailed Sandpiper was one that I really wanted to see. We saw 6 of them a few days in a row but finally got close enough for a photo on the last day. You can see the sharp tail in this pose.
The island has hosted a White-tailed Sea Eagle for a few months. This juvenile eagle should be in Russia or Europe. In fact, I saw one in Poland a few years ago. The bird is larger than our Bald Eagle and likes to hang around the cliffs along the coast. We looked for the bird everyday. It shouldn't be difficult since it was the only eagle around. We finally saw the bird soaring over fields and headed to the coast. Four other birders were on the island specifically to see this bird and this bird only. They were all in the other van and didn't see the bird. We really wanted the others to see the bird so we decided to hike up the cliffs to see if the eagle was on the cliff face. The eagle lifted off from the cliff. It was huge. The ID on the bird is the white back which can be seen in this photo. Everyone got a great look.
White-tailed Sea Eagle
Lots of high-fives and celebration beer ensued after we saw this bird.
Sea Eagle Gang
Other common birds on the island include Gray-crowned Rosy-finch. These birds like rock piles and are like our House Sparrows. They were all molting so really hideous to look at.
I'm Hideous!
Birds in the fields were mostly Lapland Longspurs and Snow Buntings.
Lapland Longspur
Snow Bunting
There are not many mammals on the island. The most common (other than the Fur Seals) were Arctic Foxes. We saw them literally everywhere we went.
They were in the grass.
Arctic Fox
On the jetty in the harbor.
Arctic Fox
In the parking lot along the salt flats.
Arctic Fox
More along the rocks. They are very comfortable around people as you can see here.
Arctic Fox
And even on the beach. These foxes do not turn white like their cousins on the mainland. They keep their dark coats all year since the island doesn't get snow that stays all winter.
Arctic Fox
We found a lot of signs of past lives on our hikes. Here is a Fur Seal skull.
Skull
I found this whale vertebra close to the coast. Yes, it was heavy.
Whale Vertebra
We found this grave site at the high point on Northeast Point. It has been here since 1895 alone on the hill.
Lonesome Grave
We found other markers on the island too. These Orthodox crosses were posted in odd places.
Cross
I found that if I looked at them from a particular angle, they actually formed a line that pointed to a chapel (seen in the distance in the photo) or the to the main Russian Orthodox church in town. Funny that most of the native Alaskans identify as Orthodox Catholics due to the Russian influence. The native Alaskans also use markers from their own culture to mark significant sites. Here is a photo of me and Marty inside the jawbones of a Bowhead whale. The bones probably mark a good fishing or hunting site. We found good birds and came back to the site a few times.
We ended our trip to Alaska on the Kenai Peninsula which is south of Anchorage. Kenai Fjords National Park is famous for fishing, glaciers and other wildlife. There are 2 destinations and of course, they are on opposite ends of the peninsula so we decided to stay in the middle. Our first destination was the port of Seward. We booked a 9 hour boat tour of the Fjords. We arrived at the dock early. Way early, as in the day before. We wanted to check out the town do a little shopping and have a nice dinner to celebrate my birthday. The recommended spot was Ray's. We had a great time and to top it off - my mother paid the bill! Can't beat that.
Birthday Dinner
The boat ride was, in one word, AWESOME. The weather was perfect, the crew was knowledgeable (and mostly female including the captain), the food was good, the views were unforgettable and the wildlife cooperated.
Kenai Fjords Tour Crew
We took the long tour so that we could get out to the Northwest Glacier which is pretty spectacular and so that we had a longer trip to see wildlife. We passed multiple rock islands on the way out which are the favorite nesting places for many sea birds such as Common Murres.
Common Murre
And the stars of the show - Puffins. Alaska has 2 types. This is Horned Puffin which look similar to our Atlantic Puffins. We saw hundreds of these flying footballs on the trip.
Horned Puffin
But these Tufted Puffins are really different with their yellow tufts blowing in the wind.
Tufted Puffin
Another puffin like bird is Rhinoceros Auklet. We saw a few of them. The name comes from the funny "horn" on the beak which is really just a feather.
Rhinoceros Auklet
Black-legged Kittiwakes nest on the cliffs of the rock islands by the hundreds too. They always look like they are smiling.
Black-legged Kittiwake nest
The strangest bird that we saw on the trip was a Bald Eagle. Doesn't sound strange right? Plenty of Bald Eagles in Alaska but this one was swimming. Yes, swimming. Here he is in the middle of the fjord doing the butterfly stroke.
Bald Eagle swimming
Here is is getting close to shore.
Bald Eagle swimming
And here he is hauling his catch out of the water. It was pretty incredible.
Bald Eagle
We arrived at the glaciers and it was pretty dramatic.
Northwest Glacier
We watched global warming in action.
The crew scooped up some ice so that we could have million year old ice cubes in our drinks.
Glacier Ice
We didn't need the ice since we were drinking Alaskan beer.
Cocktail Hour
Todd and I were really looking for a special bird that can only be found in the glacial ice but we didn't find one. Our disappointment was alleviated by the sight of Orca Whales. A pod swam past our boat. Here is a Mom and baby.
Orca Baby
Dad was a big dude! This is his dorsal fin which stood out of the water by 8 feet.
Bull Orca
I captured the whole scene with this shot. Breathtaking.
Kenai Fjord Orcas
Just when we thought there couldn't be more, we pulled back into the docks and saw even more. While we were nature watching, other boats were out fishing. Almost everyone came off the boats with fish. Mainly Halibut and Salmon. Check out the size of this gal - 200 pounds.
200 pound Halibut
The fishermen (and women) weren't the only ones feasting on the fish. The Sea Otters know that when the boats come back to the dock, they will get the fish scraps. They hang out below the filet table and just wait for manna from heaven.
Sea Otter
Sea Otter with fish scraps
This guy didn't need the handouts. He found his own crab and boy was he happy!
