Not all whale watches end in a whale of a tale

 

Saturday we went on a whale watch out of Galilee on the Francis Fleet. For me, the point of this trip was to hopefully find Scopoli's Shearwater, Last year, a species called Cory's Shearwater split into two species. It was determined that a subspecies of Cory's was actually a different species. So the birds that have all black at the wingtips remain Cory's and the ones that have white near the wingtips are Scopoli's. There are other genetic differences too but for birders that is the key field mark. 

    I've seen Scopoli's in North Carolina when I went on pelagics. I've almost certainly seen them in Rhode Island too. But since they were all considered the same species I never really tried to pick them out. Now that their are two species, I can pick up a species on my Rhode Island list by identifying a Scopoli's. 

   Six of us went out on the whale watch. Obviously, most people wanted to see whales. However, the six of us would have been happy to see birds and no whales. If no whales are spotted, the company gives out a free ticket to come back at a later time. 

   We travelled twenty three miles from port without seeing a whale and our prospects were good to not see one. Then one stupid Humpback decided to surface. Now don't get me wrong, I do love to see whales and I've had incredible whale watch experiences. This whale was feeding. It surfaced a mile from the boat for thirty seconds then dove again. We motored over to where it was seen and waited. It stayed down for over ten minutes before it came up for air. It did this three times. Each time it came up it was hundreds of yards from the boat. These disappointing sightings meant we were not going to get a free ticket for a future whale watch.

   

Wilson's Storm Petrel

Because it took so long to find the whale, we only had this thirty minute window to watch it. It did the three deep dives and off we went. The birding was very good. We saw plenty of Great and Cory's Shearwaters. We saw two Manx and a possible Sooty Shearwater. Wilson's Storm Petrel, a common pelagic bird was out on the water by the hundreds.  Unfortunately, I am still without a Rhode Island Scopoli's.  The finacial cost it is taking to see this bird is adding up quickly!