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Posted by Larry Manfredi on 09:58:20 07/20/06
I finally have the time to post the trip results from last Saturday. We had 3-5 ft. seas with east to southeast winds of 15-20 knots, not the conditions that you hope for to be on a boat. Despite the conditions we were able to make it out 18-miles to what is called the "Ups and Downs". This is the western edge of the Marathon Hump which consist of a series sea mounts. The boat handled the waves very well and was very stable with not a single person getting sick. After putting out the first chum slick, I saw a distant storm-petrel and some Bridled Terns. After a pretty good wait we had two Wilson's Storm-Petrels cruising up and down the chum slick giving everyone on board great looks. We had excellent looks at Bridled Terns as well as some Sooty Terns, a lone Brown Noddy was also seen. We continued to have a few more Wilson's Storm Petrels but we did not see a single Band-rumped Storm-Petrel which had me wondering where they could be. We cruised south and west of this area for a while but we did not really see many birds, we then headed back to the "Ups and Downs" to put out more chum. Lots of Bridled Terns were around and a couple more Wilson's Storm-Petrels, but with out any Band-rumped that we had hoped for. We had a few Purple Martins cruise by and a couple of Least Terns. On our return trip we passed by Sombrero Light hoping for some Brown Boobies or Roseate Terns. The only thing present were Double-crested Cormorants, Royal Terns and a few Least Terns.
I talked to one of our local birders who used to do commercial fishing, he talked to one of his fishing friends who commented on the lack of fish that day. The winds just were not favorable for seeing good numbers of birds, the fish were not biting or were not around either. We still had some good birds but I was spoiled by the previous trip in June which had many species seen, that is the nature of pelagic birding. Here is the list below.
Sooty Tern 8
Bridled Tern 35
Brown Noddy 1
Royal Tern 7
Least Tern 12
Magnificent Frigatebird 3
Wilson's Storm-Petrel 6
Purple Martin 5
White-crowned Pigeon 8 on the way back close to land.
White Ibis 3 about 5-miles out.
Glossy Ibis a distant flock of about 25 near the Ups and Downs.
What was really strange was the lack of any shearwaters of any kind, we could not find a single species.
Larry Manfredi
Homestead, FL.
E-mail: birderlm@bellsouth.net
http://www.southfloridabirding.com
Larry Manfredi
Homestead, FL.
E-mail: birderlm@bellsouth.net
http://www.southfloridabirding.com
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