The American Princess launched its first overnight dedicated birding pelagic trip on Monday night, departing from Brooklyn's Sheepshead Bay. Captain Frank did a great job managing the disorganized seas, and the other guides/bird spotters in addition to myself were Paul Guris and Sean Sime.
Water temperatures over the shelf were steady in the 53 degree Fahrenheit range, and this uniformity continued into deep waters. We didn't see a rise in temperature until the water depth was around 7,000 feet. The furthest point we reached was in deep water south of the mouth of the Hudson Canyon, around 115 statute miles off of Barnegat, New Jersey, and over 120 statute miles from Fire Island, and we experienced a 6.5 degree F temperature increase within a span of around 5 miles. This was the outer range of where we could get to with the boat in the current conditions, and so we set up a morning chum slick here. After three hours in this vicinity, we headed north towards the Hudson Canyon and worked along the western wall of the canyon before heading for home. Highlight bird & mammal species: *BLACK-CAPPED PETREL* - 5 (including one in shallower waters near the Hudson Canyon) *DOVEKIE* - 1 (just south of the Hudson Canyon's west wall) *Atlantic Puffin* - 2 (just south of the Hudson Canyon's west wall) *Leach's Storm-Petrel* - 2 (one in the slick, and one in the early morning gloaming) *Band-rumped Storm-Petrel *- 1 briefly passed through the slick *Red Phalarope* - 5 (deep water and near-canyon) *Red-necked Phalarope* - 6 (deep water and near-canyon) *Manx Shearwater *- 4 (all in deep water, including two exceptionally cooperative birds in the slick) *STRIPED DOLPHIN* - One big pod moving by us very fast in tight formation. These are highly pelagic dolphins, and are essentially only seen on trips that get into truly deep water, beyond the undersea canyons. Risso's Dolphin - One small pod near the Hudson Canyon Humpback Whale - Fin Whale - a couple around a cetacean agregation west of the tip of the Hudson Canyon Humpback Whale - at least one around a cetacean aggregation west of the tip of the Hudson Canyon Numbers were a bit surprisingly low of the three generally more common shearwaters, with only 27 Sooty Shearwater, 1 Great Shearwater, and 3 Cory's Shearwaters. We also had several encounters with what eventually numbered several hundred Common Dolphins, and came across perhaps as many as 10 Mola (Ocean Sunfish). We did not see any passerines at sea, and a group of 7 northbound Canada Geese 75 miles east of Barnegat and 70+ miles south of Westhampton, and one Double-crested Cormorant flying by at our farthest point (~115 miles from closest point of land) were the most seemingly out of place birds. One of the most interesting events of the day for me was an obvious large-scale movement of Common Terns that went on for around 40 miles of our trip. We had several hundred sterna, mostly or all Common (everything close enough to be identified, even just by photo, was a Common) Terns, heading NE between the tip of the Hudson Canyon and about halfway back, and we were out of the flow once we were about 40 miles away from shore. Good Pelagic Birding! -Douglas Gochfeld. Brooklyn, NY. -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME.htm http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES.htm 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://birding.aba.org/maillist/NY01 Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
