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Posted by Toe on 16:27:09 09/13/08
Today our crew consisted of Larry Manfredi, Trey Mitchell, Gallus Quigley, and Carlos Sanchez, who braved the 15-20 kt winds on top of the residual chop left over from hurricane Ike's passage. I think this was the roughest pelagic trip I've done so far. The boat would go up and down, up and down, side to side...you get the picture.
Despite the high seas, we had good cooperation from the birds, with the first "pelagic" bird seen being a Bridled Tern just off the lighthouse at Cape Florida, and all the other birds seen in close to the edge in 300-500 ft of water. We didn't get any exceptional birds, but we had pretty good variety on the pelagics.
The biggest surprise came while we were running in through the channel south of Cape Florida and Larry spotted a Mississippi Kite over the southern portion of Bill Baggs, a county bird for Larry and life bird for Carlos and Trey. Turn's out, this bird is just one day off when I got my county MS Kite last year, seen on Sept. 14, a bird which Wil Domke spotted as we birded Matheson. This must be the week to look for MS kites down here.
Here is our list for the day. Thanks to those that braved the seas.
Brown Booby (2)
Red-necked Phalarope (9)
Cory's Shearwater (6)
Parasitic Jaeger
Bridled Tern (8)
Sooty Tern (25)
Brown Noddy (4)
Sandwich Tern (2)
Forster's Tern (3)
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