Study up on Albatross field marks folks. Those of us going out on the August Paulagics trip - www.paulagics.com - will want to to be ready....
Rich Guthrie New Baltimore The Greene County New York ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Peter Crosson <pcros...@emeraldphysicians.com> Date: Sun, Jul 12, 2015 at 3:03 PM Subject: [MASSBIRD] Albatross sp. - Stellwagen Bank To: "massb...@theworld.com" <massb...@theworld.com> Hello Mass birders, while acting as an observer on a seabird survey for NOAA this morning, I observed an albatross sp. The trip was out of Barnstable, and the location of the sighting was somewhere on the southern side of the bank, but I do not have any more accurate location data than that. The boat was moving at a good rate of speed between two different feeding congregations of whales. As a consequence, I only had a brief look at the bird, which was resting on the water. However I recognized it instantly as an albatross, noting its huge size, very heavy bill with a distinct downturn at the tip, and dark brow. I immediately yelled for Captain Jon Brink, the naturalist on board who is a very experienced seabird watcher. Jon got on the bird and immediately agreed it was an albatross, but as neither of us were very familiar with the field marks, we quickly decided it had to be a black-browed albatross, given the obvious dark brow line. It was also seen well by our record! er, Mary Jo Foti. I knew I wasn't going to have time to get a picture, as the boat was roaring along towards its next destination, being a whale watch and not a pelagic bird tour. Jon did agree to try to retrace our steps on the return trip, but we did not relocate the bird. On returning home and reviewing the field marks of both the possible North Atlantic albatrosses, I now think it may have been a yellow-nosed. In my brief view it seemed that the bill was partially dark with yellow on top, but I cannot be certain. The brow was dark as noted, but both species can show the dark brow. I cannot comment on whether or not the nape appeared dusky. Captain Jon has another trip out today, so hopefully he will be able to relocate the bird, but in the meantime we have decided to leave it as albatross sp. Jon told me that one of the Boston whale watches had a yellow-nosed earlier this year, so who knows! Meanwhile, the shearwater show was really spectacular. I would estimate we saw 15 to 20,000 total, with sooty being the most common. I encourage everyone to get out on a whale watching boat, as the whales have been even more spectacular than the birds! Peter Crosson Osterville, Mass. Sent from my iPhone -- Richard Guthrie -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
