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Posted by Dan Irizarry on 15:35:00 05/22/10
I, with 4 other birders, went on a pelagic trip with Toe. Although birds were few and far between, we saw 11 species but not many numbers of each. The bird we saw the most of was Bridled Terns (less than 20 seen all day!)
Here's the list as I remember it:
Magnificent Frigatebird (many - seen roosting on island just off the Crandon Marina)
Sooty Tern (3)
Bridled Tern (15-18, I don't remember the exact number)
Cory's Shearwater (1)
Wilson's Storm-Petrel (5 maybe)
Band-rumped Storm Petrel (1)
Brown Booby (10-12)
Brown Noddy (1)
Arctic Tern (1)
Pomarine Jaeger (1)
Northern Gannet (a few)
Something odd/funny happened too! I had just finished telling a story on how we saw a migrating Thrush on our trip to Dry Tortugas. Within a minute of me finishing the story, someone called out "Bird!" off the stern. Guess what we saw...a Swainson's Thrush! I wish I could tell stories about South Polar Skuas or Albatrosses and have them show up right after!
Another amazing sight was to see 2 Loggerhead Turtles mating in the ocean! Were in shallow water on our way back to shore, and we saw the pair!
CLose to the dock on our way in, we had our only Brown Pelican of the day. Double-crested Cormorants were seen on the Fowie Lighthouse (so were most of the Brown Boobies) as well as channel markers close to shore.
I'll defer to Toe to see if anything was missed.
Three more weeks to the TAS Prairie Potholes trip!
Dan Irizarry
Bradenton, FL
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