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Posted by Larry Manfredi on 11:20:21 06/26/06
Six intrepid birders joined me in for an excellent day of birding on the waters of the Gulf Stream, what a great way to bird during the slow hot summer. We left Key Largo about 8:30 for a long journey to the Marathon Hump located 43-miles from the dock in Key Largo. It really was not that long when you are cruising at 35-miles an hour, what a great way to cover lots of water for great birds. The seas were 2-feet or less which made for an excellent and fast ride. Once we passed the reef line we started to see the first of many BRIDLED TERNS, a little later we had the first of many SOOTY TERNS as well as some BROWN NODDIES. About half way to the hump I saw a bird sitting in the water, from a distance I thought it may be a Pomarine Jaeger, once we got close it was a GREATER SHEARWATER. This bird allowed us to cruise very close to it for great photos. As we neared the Marathon Hump we so small flocks of birds mixed in with CORY'S SHEARWATER and AUDUBON'S SHEARWATER. We had great looks at both of these species side by side to see just how small an AUDUBON'S SHEARWATER is sitting in the water next to a CORY'S SHEARWATER. It was very interesting watching the AUDUBON'S SHEARWATER feed with it's head under water and in a clump of Sargasso weed. I took many photos of the bird with it's head under water while trying to get photos of it's head out of the water!! We left this flock and continued on to the Marathon Hump where many boats were fishing. We saw quite a few small schools of Black-finned Tuna as well as Dolphin fish closer to shore in the weed lines. One boat had a billfish hooked, I never did see what kind it was. We stopped the boat in this area and drifted looking for birds, I put out some chum hoping to attract some storm-petrels or anything else. We drifted for quite a ways at 3-knots but did not see too many birds. We then decided to get on the southwest side of the hump and drift again with chum over the side. The captain thought that I was crazy with the 5-gallon bucket loaded with my secret chum thinking that it will never work. Well I had my doubts for the first 30-minutes when not a whole lot was happening.
The best trick to see birds is to start eating lunch! After the first few bites of my sandwich Bryant Roberts got on a storm-petrel, I had one hand on my sandwich and one on my binoculars. This turned out to be a BAND-RUMPED STORM-PETREL, this bird was soon joined by two others as well as two WILSON'S STORM-PETRELS. I never did get to finish my sandwich because the birds came close to give us great views of their flight styles and size differences.
BAND-RUMPED is much blacker overall with longer wings, WILSON'S are smaller with shorter wings that look a little less slim. WILSON'S has more brownish color on the upperside with more prominent pale upperwing coverts. BAND-RUMPED has much more subdued less pale upperwing coverts. The WILSON'S dip down into the water more with their long longs and feet, the BAND-RUMPED hardly dip down at all with their short legs. BAND-RUMPED fly like small shearwaters flapping with short glides , very fast flight compared with the slower WILSON'S. As we were enjoying these great looks a GREATER SHEARWATER came to enjoy the feast eating as much as it could fit into it's stomach, it stayed within sight of the boat digesting it's meal. After continuing to drift we started getting farther from the GREATER SHEARWATER sitting in the water, we noticed that many of the storm-petrels were flying in the area around the greater. We pulled in the chum bag and drove back over to the GREATER SHEARWATER that was resting from it's meal. As we were watching some WILSON'S STORM-PETRELS flying near by another GREATER SHEARWATER came flying in right next to the boat. This bird showed no fear as it eat chum so close to the boat that I could not focus the camera!! It was really cool as the bird dove under water flapping it' wings to eat chum that was sinking. It then popped up again too close to focus well with the camera. We watched BRIDLED TERNS eating the chum, all of the storm-petrels and the GREATER SHEARWATERS chowing down. What a great way to see these cool birds so close by to see all of their field marks.
We had drifted about 7-miles from the Marathon Hump enjoying all of the cool birds. I scanned the distant waters and spotted a shearwater like bird with a very prominent white upper rump. It was very far out when I first saw the bird but lucky for us it was flying in our direction. As it came closer I noticed it was flying with a CORY'S SHEARWATER giving us a good view of size comparison. This bird was noticeably smaller then the near by CORY'S SHEARWATER, it was nice to see this. I also noticed that it would fly level over the water and then arch up into the air and then back down again. It came as close as 150 to 200 yards where four of us got good views but the rest were not able to get on the bird, darn it!!!
This was the first *BLACK-CAPPED PETREL* that I have ever seen and it was a good view of all of the field marks. This bird did not have a white collar (if it did I did not see it) that some of them do or perhaps most of them do. It did however have a very large white prominent uppertail coverts which was the most noticeable thing that I first saw when finding the bird. I also got to see the underside of the bird, it had very white underwings with a black leading edge, I could also see the black cap. Once we realized what it was we tried to give chase as the bird flew around us at a distance and then headed in a south westerly direction. We were able to chase it for a short way before we lost it, we never were able to see it again or any others. I never got the camera on it because it was far and I was to mesmerized using my binoculars to get all of the good views of this cool bird. Perhaps the month of June is a good month to see this species here in Florida??? That is one of the best things about pelagic birding, you never know what you are going to see.
After giving up in finding the BLACK-CAPPED PETREL again, we headed for Alligator Light (30-miles away) hoping for Brown Boobies or Roseate Terns. We saw lots of boats very close to the light but did not see the boobies or terns. We then concluded the trip and head back to the dock, as we were cruising through the channel we had 8-WHITE-CROWED PIGEONS a lifer for some. Below is a list of birds we saw.
*BLACK-CAPPED PETREL 1*
Cory's Shearwater 4
Greater Shearwater 3
Audubon's Shearwater 5
Wilson's Storm-Petrel 2
BAND-RUMPED STORM-PETREL 4
Magnificent Frigatebird 5
Least Tern 1
Bridled Tern 77
Sooty Tern 37
Brown Noddy 7
White-crowned Pigeon 8
The next trip will be on Saturday July 15 for those that are interested.
Larry Manfredi
Homestead, FL.
E-mail: birderlm@bellsouth.net
http://www.southfloridabirding.com
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