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Everybody take pelagic trips! (Curlew Sandpiper at Pea INWR?)
- To: carolinabirds@duke.edu
- Subject: Everybody take pelagic trips! (Curlew Sandpiper at Pea INWR?)
- From: Joshua Stuart Rose <jsr6@duke.edu>
- Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1999 13:40:04 -0400 (EDT)
- Sender: carolinabirds-owner@acpub.duke.edu
Hi Carolinabirders,
First off, I want to encourage anybody who has free time this weekend to
sign up for one of Brian's pelagic trips. I decided, on pretty much the
spur of the moment, to participate on this past Sunday (would be going
this weekend but I have a wedding to attend in Michigan). I left Durham
at midnight and arrived at Oden's Dock in Hatteras at 5:30 AM, shortly
before the boat boarded. As you've already heard, I ran into Cynthia Fox
of the Wild Bird Center there, and we had a great time: three life birds
for me, including up-close and personal looks at one South Polar Skua and
lots of Bridled Terns.
(Side note: a bunch of the birders on the boat were talking toward the
end about a Curlew Sandpiper which had been written in the sightings book
at Pea Island NWR, from the North Pond. Haven't heard a peep [heh heh]
about this on Carolinabirds, maybe it was discovered by someone from out
of town or who doesn't have e-mail. Anyone who's on the Outer Banks in
the near future might want to check this out.)
What you haven't heard yet is that, on my sleepy way home from the boat,
I was driving through Manteo and spotted Paul Guris of FONT, who told me
that they still had room on the "Country Girl" the next morning! So I
went on yet another pelagic boat trip, and the results were nearly as
spectacular for birds and much more so for fish and marine mammals. The
haul:
Black-capped Petrel 90
Cory's Shearwater 510
Greater Shearwater 39
Audubon's Shearwater 51
Wilson's Storm-Petrel 188
Leach's Storm-Petrel 1
Band-rumped Storm-Petrel 26
South Polar Skua 1
Black Tern 1
Bridled Tern 3
Sooty Tern 20
Bottlenose Dolphin 20
Risso's Dolphin 2
Atlantic Spotted Dolphin 100
Pilot Whale 15
SPERM WHALE 1
Yellowfin Tuna 1 (caught)
Mahi-Mahi ~30 (caught a few)
Ocean Sunfish 1
The Spotted Dolphins put on a great show, jumping and swimming all about
the boat for several minutes two different times. The Sperm Whale didn't
do much, but let us watch it nap at the surface for a while from not very
far away. I've always wanted to see one of those!
So anyway, both trips were well worth the price of admission and the
drive out there, and more besides. And there's more to see than just
birds, in case you're trying to convince a non-birding spouse or friend
to come along. And if you leave at midnight and drive through the night
as I did, there's no traffic on 64 or 12, the temperature's much nicer,
and you don't have to worry about finding a motel room.
And you never know who you'll see out there: not only did I run into
Cynthia a day after I had been buying birdseed from her in Chapel Hill,
but I also ran into a birder named John McDaniel. I first met John at the
Whitefish Point Bird Observatory, where I worked for several months and
got all kinds of great life birds like Northern Hawk-Owl and Smith's
Longspur. Then I saw John in Florida in December 1998, where we met in
front of the Northern Lapwing near Lake Istokpoga. And now John and I met
again and saw a White-tailed Tropicbird. It makes me look forward to what
bird we'll be seeing the next time we meet... Ain't the birding world
small?
Anyway, go on pelagic trips. They're the best. FONT is done in NC for
this year, but Brian has lots left, and both will be back again next
summer.
Good birding,
Josh
Joshua S. Rose
Duke University
Department of Zoology
jsr6@acpub.duke.edu
http://www.duke.edu/~jsr6/