The hundred dollar bird I already had

Great Shearwater was my target bird on the whale watch.
This photo was taken on July 4, 2019 on a boat 
out of Chatham, MA

Today I went on my second Francis Fleet Whale Watch of the year. Including the whale watches and the two dedicated pelagics, it was my forth time off shore this year, the third in Rhode Island. The first trip I took out was on the Ocean State Bird Club pelagic. We had a great trip. We saw three of the four common species of Shearwater (missing Great). We also had Wilson's Storm Petrel, two species of dolphin, Mola Mola, and a shark.

The second timeout was the Forth of July. I went out of Chatham, MA. Again, we had the best trip I've been on to date. We saw all four species of Shearwaters, plus Wilson's Storm Petrel. We had calm water, great light and birds right next to the boat. I got five times more great photos of pelagic species in that one day than all my other trips combined. My third trip out was almost impossibly bad. We took the Francis Fleet whale watch boat to look for birds. We saw some whales but other than four gulls, we didn't see a single other bird. Since the people in the bird club were there to see birds and not whales, it was tough to waste that $50.

If you were to look at the birds I've seen and where I've seen them, you will notice I have Great Shearwater in MA but not Rhode Island. Since I am doing a RI Big Year, I can't count my MA Great Shearwater. So I had to make a decision on whether to accept I wasn't going to get Great Shearwater in RI or go try again.

I weighed the pros and cons. I was already out $50 from the last whale watch that literally produced no birds for anyone. Did I want to risk throwing away another fifty? Even if I saw the Great, I'd never get any photos that could compare to the ones on the Forth of July. I had to make up my mind soon because the last whale watch of the year is August 28.

The deciding factor became, it was worth risking another fifty bucks simply because I like being on boats. If we saw some whales but dipped on the bird, I'd be okay with it. If we didn't see any whales,I'd get a ticket for a free trip to go again next year. I put out a message last week in the "bird group chat" to see if anyone else was interested. A few people said yes, so we left Galilee today with ten birders and quite a few tourists.

The first three hours of the whale watch was terrible. We didn't see any birds or whales, We traveled southwest of Block Island, then we turned east. When we were over 20 miles from port we had to head back in. Happily for us, we were much further east and started seeing some birds.

I ended up with my Great Shearwater. There were two seen roughly 150 yards from the boat. We also saw Cory's Shearwater, and a Manx Shearwater. The only other good bird was a Northern Gannet. Obviously, seeing the Great Shearwater made my trip. Many others hadn't been on a boat yet this year so all three shearwaters were year birds.

The best news for us was we didn't see any whales. This means I got a ticket to go again next year FREE!!! For us birders, it made it a 2-1 deal. However, I started feeling a little guilty that I was rooting to go "whaleless". There were a lot of disappointed passengers onboard. There was a family of five from Pennsylvania. I seriously doubt they will be using their free ticket anytime soon and they were out two hundred bucks!

As, for me, I got my bird in Rhode Island. It took me two whale watches to get a distant look at it. Which means, I spent one hundred dollars to see one far away bird, that I had already seen up close in another state. Yet, they say birders are smart!

Manx Shearwater