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Posted by Toe on 17:40:46 06/14/08
This morning we got an early start, leaving Crandon Marina shortly after 6:30. On board were Angle and Mariel, Trey, Larry, and special guest Mark Berney. Special because this was his first trip with us. Hopefully it won't be his last.
We headed out through Bear Cut and headed towards Fowey. On the way we spotted two Brown Booby, and lucky we did, since there were none at Fowey Lighthouse. After Fowey, we headed towards the deeper waters, hoping the east winds of the last week+ would have pushed bait, and birds, in close to the edge. No such luck. There was nothing on the edge, and we didn't get our first bird until we spotted a Band-rumped Storm-Petrel in about 400 ft. of water. Nothing again until we started seeing some weedlines in close to 1,000 ft of water. We quickly spotted two separate Leach's Storm-Petrels, but the looks were not the best. Out a little further we found a well-formed weedline and set up a chum slick. Within 5 minutes we had two Leach's and one Wilson's Storm-Petrel feediing in the slick! We got some killer looks as they would buzz past the boat. We also had a couple of fly-by Audubon's Shearwaters, but overall shearwaters were a disappointment today. We did see 3 or 4 larger shearwater types that were two far to ID while we were trying to photograph the Leach's. We later added a few Bridled and Sooty Terns, and had to-die-for looks at two Pomarine Jaegers and one Jaeger that I'd like to see the photos first before making a call. It was flyiing bihind our first Pomarine, but looked a little smaller and slimmer. Our third Jaeger really put on a show. We were in the middle of a mixed flock of Sooty and Bridled Terns when out of nowhere comes an awesome, breeding-plumage adult Pomarine crashing through the scene and chasing terns. Totally breathtaking! On the way in we added a second Band-rumped Storm-Petrel. Today we had an excellent opportunity to study the differences in the flight patterns of the three expected Storm-Petrels in this area. The 15+ kt. winds really helped keep the birds aloft, but with 3-5 ft. seas we did a lot of bouncing around out there. Sure glad it was worht it. Thanks to today's deep-sea adventurers.
Our list:
Brown Booby (2)
Audubon's Shearwater (4)
Leach's Storm-Petrel (5)
Band-rumped Storm-Petrel (2)
Wilson's Storm-Petrel (2)
Pomarine Jaeger (2)
Jaeger sp. (1, pending photos)
Sooty Tern (~12)
Bridled Tern (~15)
Shearwater sp. (3-4)
Frigatebird (35)
Lessere Black-backed Gull (2)
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