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Posted by Toe on 13:14:20 05/21/13
This Sunday I joined Mike Brothers and 45+ other birders on an 18-hour, 100 mile offshore trip out of Ponce Inlet. Local birder Lorena Siquiera was gracious enough to let me drive up with her (thanks!). Although bird numbers were lower than we expected, the diversity was superb. The boat left the dock at 3:00 am and we had rain from almost the moment we left to about 10:00. I'm sure this rain hurt us for the early part of the trip. We had the best variety out 90 miles when, as we were looking at a small group of Black-capped Petrels and some terns, a White-tailed Tropicbird came to check us out, as they usually do.
The sky conditions were gray and drizzly for most of the day, so taking photos was tough. However, my wife was using our camera this weekend and Trey let me borrow his Canon. I'm impressed with how well the camera performed in those conditions. Also, the photos have this "gray and windy" quality to them which shows the conditions as they were, and I really like that. These are real pelagic photos as they should look - wind, waves, gray menacing skies, and birds that are as wild and free of humans as they can get. Thanks Trey for trusting me with the camera. I assure you I didn't drop it in the water, more than once.
Here's the list:
Black-capped Petrel 12
Audubon's Shearwater 15
Cory's Shearwater 2
Sooty Shearwater 1
Wilson's Storm-Petrel 6
Leach's Storm-Petrel 1
Band-rumped Storm-Petrel 5
White-tailed Tropicbird 1
Brown Booby 1
Arctic Tern 5
Bridled Tern 8
Sooty Tern 74
Pomarine Jaeger 1
Red-necked Phalarope 12
Loggerhead Turtle 1
Leatherback Turtle 1
Sailfish 1
Wahoo 1
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