Posted by Robin Diaz on November 13, 2002 at 17:42:34:
Encouraged by clearing skies and brisk N winds, I scanned for seabirds from balcony firma. Northern Gannets were abundant; the first scan at 2 PM found numerous adults in 2's and 3's. The second scan at 4:30 had the same, plus 4 large flocks; the smallest of 19 birds and the largest of 43 birds. Again, most were adults. The large flocks were high off the water and the birds were really motoring.
One bird was by itself and close enough to see that it was not a distant immature gannet. It was uniform lightish brown on the upperbody with mostly white on underside of wings. The wings were long and not very angular. It flew like a shearwater; my deduction is a probable Cory's Shearwater. A gang of 5 frigatebirds seemed up to go no good. There were a couple of distant small flocks of birds flying low over the water. Size, shape and color would probably be phalaropes -- just too far for good ID.
The birders in Titusville should have great sightings this weekend during the festival.