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Posted by Toe on 09:28:25 10/27/11
In Reply to: Re: Pelagic Trip out of Ponce Inlet, Nov. 13 posted by Bill Pranty
On a serious note, if new pelagic birds to Florida turn up on a beach, it means that they must have been alive offshore. These specimens seem to show up more often during strong wind events of one type or another. The fact that they are dead or dying on a beach means that they could have been stressed by being so far from their typical range, especially birds that should stay much farther north where their food supply is much more plentiful (murrelets, fulmars for example). But, they made it down here alive. The Gulfstream flows north, they they weren't carried here dead by the currents.
Other pelagic species, such as Bulwer's Petrel and Trindade Petrel, are known to circumnavigate the Atlantic, and in the case of the Trindade it crosses the equator from the south. Other species that we see here make very long journeys to get here. Wilson's Storm-Petrel and South Polar Skua come up from the Antarctic, while Band-rumped Storm-Petrels and Cory's Shearwater cross over from the eastern Atlantic. Yellow-nosed Albatross has been recorded in Florida. Bottom line, the ocean is one vast habitat for these species, and although I know chances for new birds are low, they are not impossible. You never really know what could be out there. We usually venture out under "calm" conditions, which are not optimal for these birds. Try looking from a beach on a calm day and you will probably not see shearwaters, jaeger, or storm-petrels. Try it with 30 kt winds, different story. Same is probably true about pelagic birds in open water. When my new boat is ready, I'll put this theory to the test.
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