A couple years back I got in touch with Blair and asked him if I could join the email list. I briefly explained that I work every Sunday and every other Sat, so it may be a while before one of these pop up mini-pelagics would fit into my schedule. Obviously, it is no big deal to him to add another person to the email list.
Sunday night as I was silencing my phone to go into a movie I noticed an email from Blair about a pelagic trip for the 4th of July. I had to make a rash decision to either ask to go or not. With only six open spots, these trips fill up fast. The catch was the boat leaves at 5 am. If I had time to think about it, I'd have probably talked myself out of wanting to go. Luckily for me, Rocketman was about to start so I made the decision to ask if any spots were still open. When I got out of the movie I found out I had indeed reserved a spot. Man, am I glad I did.
I had to be up at 2:55 AM to make it to Chatham Fish Pier on time. We left promptly at 5 Am. While cruising out of the harbor we watched the sun come up. Within a couple miles we started seeing Wilson's Storm Petrel everywhere. Soon after we saw a few Great Shearwaters and a couple Sooty flying but we kept on motoring out. I was actually getting slightly annoyed that we were still moving with birds around. I was seeing more birds than I saw on the Ocean State Bird Club Trip last month, yet we didn't stop and chum. I figured the sooner we would chum, the more time we would have with close birds
Luckily, Ken and Blair know more than I do. We motored out a few more miles and came across rafts of pelagic birds. We stopped at a couple where I got some decent shots of Great Shearwaters and Sootys, then we kept motoring out.
When we finally did stop and chum, the birds put on a show for us. We had Great Shearwaters, Sooty, and Wilson's Storm Petrel within inches of the boat. A couple times the Storm Petrels were within reach. The Shearwaters were feeding right under me, too close to focus on! We also came across a few Cory's Shearwaters and a Manx Shearwater. So we got the four common shearwaters and the common Wilson's pretty quickly.
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| Wilson's Storm Petrel |
We also got what are considered rare birds also. We had at least two, maybe three Leach's Storm Petrel. They are bigger than a Wilson's and fly like a Nighthawk. The other great bird was a Long Tailed Jaeger. This bird circled around the boat for about ten minutes. I didn't get as great of photos of it because we entered a fog bank during that time, so I didn't have the same great light as I did most of the trip. I realized it would be tough to get great pics, so I took a few then watched it through the binoculars.
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| Long Tailed Jaeger |
We also saw Laughing Gulls, Common Terns, and Roseate Terns while out there besides the common Gull species. It was a truly amazing morning and I hate to say it, well worth getting up before 3 AM for. More pictures below and probably another post
*** I took 742 pictures on the boat. Of those I probably deleted half when I got home because they were out of focus, or the bird dove/flew when I snapped the photo. That still leaves me over 300 acceptable pictures. I had great light on very calm seas. Blair and the Captain knew where to take us. I couldn't have asked for a better 4th of July.
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| This photo and the four below are Sooty Shearwaters |
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| The little one on the left is a Manx Shearwater |
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| Great Shearwater and also the next six below |
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| Wilson's Storm Petrel, and the next four |
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| Shark bait |
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| Screenshot of a photo of a Leach's Storm Petrel. Photo by Blair Nikula  |
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