Last but not least Adventure 7/7 Dedicated Pelagic Birding Trip

Well, if gymnastics was the highlight of Laurie's weekend, then the birding trip was the thing I looked forward to the most. My bird club (Ocean State Bird Club) chartered a boat to go way out in the ocean to see seabirds that you can not see from shore. I happened to see the sign up on the website and immediately put my name on the list. The boat only held fifteen people and my bird club has many members, so I was fortunate to get a spot.

We took off out of Galilee at 6 am on Saturday morning. We went out on the forty two foot Snappa. After getting to bed at midnight, when my alarm rang at 4:20, it was nothing short of painful. I packed all of my gear Thursday afternoon knowing I would be too busy Friday to pack. All I had to do was put my cold Gatorade and my lunch in my backpack and off I went. The boat went 35 miles southeast of Point Judith to a place called Cox Ledge.

The ride from Galilee to our first stop was roughly ninety minutes. We were miles from shore and land was nowhere in site. The captain put out some chum that made a nice slick and within minutes we had some birds. Since I had never been that far out, not even on a whale watch, all of the birds were sure to be lifebirds for me. The main group of birds were called "shearwaters. We saw four species of Shearwater (Corys, Great, Sooty,and Manx). I had made a cheat sheet which I had attempted to study, but was just too busy all week. I planned on studying it on the trip out, but I left it at home. However, the birds were actually easy to identify. For example, Sooty Shearwater is all brown. The other three have white on the sides. So if you see an all brown shearwater, it has to be a Sooty. The Great has a black cap on its head. There is a white collar separating it form the brown on the rest of the body. So even though  I'd never seen a species of shearwater, I could ID them fairly quickly.

Sooty Sheatwater

We also saw Wilson's Storm Petrel and Lesser Black Backed Gull along with other gulls. I was very surprised that gulls travel that far from land. I'm so used to see gulls fighting over french fries, it was refreshing to see them out at sea.

Roughly halfway through the voyage, I got seasick (along with many others) and added to the chum slick. After that, I spent most of the time lying down in the cabin. If there is one silver lining, it is, I didn't miss anything. In the last four hours of the trip, they saw very few birds and no other new species.

I took exactly 188 photographs. Of those, I got less than ten focused birds in the rough seas. Obviously, if I would have spent more time vertical, I would have taken more pictures. Another guy I had talked to on the boat, who had a camera with much faster speed than mine said he took a thousand shots and only had a few real good ones. So I don't feel too bad. Even with the seasickness, I would like to go out again next year. Seeing birds that I can't see from shore was really fun. 

I ended up getting four lifebirds (the four species of Shearwaters) and two life fish. I saw flying fish come out of the water and mahi mahi under a single piece of seaweed.

All photos are of Great Shearwater except the one picture of the Sooty Shearwater.

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