In my last post I explained that I was visiting Florida on my way to a trip to Guyana and Suriname with the primary intention of seeing my lifer Florida Scrub-jay and Manatee. The secondary purpose (apart from having an enjoyable time birding) was to add a number of species to my American Birding Association (ABA) list.
On the 19th I visited Jonathon Dickinson State Park where I saw the jay and Lake Kissimmee where I saw a wide range of species including a few that were additions to my ABA list.
Heading back south to West Palm Beach I stopped at Fort Pierce due to tiredness but heard at the motel that manatees could be seen nearby.
Whereas I wish to see as many of the world’s birds as possible, for the mammals I set my sights somewhat lower. In general I’m happy to see just one (or a few) of the different ‘types’ of mammal rather than every species, so at least one pangolin, racoon, genet or lemming for example, but one whole ‘type’ of mammals that I had failed to see anywhere were the Sirenians. The Order Sirenia comprises of two Families: Dugonidae (two species – Dugong and the extinct Steller’s Sea Cow) and Trichechidae (three species – West Indian Manatee, Amazonian Manatee and West African Manatee) in spite of spending quite a bit of time within the range of all five extant species I had never seen any.
I was out early and down at the marina at Fort Pierce looking for the sirenians. There was a Manatee centre, which opened at 10:00, signs saying ‘don’t feed the Manatees’ but no actual Manatees. Local dog walkers, fishermen and boatmen all said the same ‘they’re normally here but I haven’t seen any for a couple of days, probably too hot for them’.
One guy said the best place was at the pier on the outer banks, so I returned to Seaway Drive and crossed the bridge to the barrier islands, seeing a fairly tame Great Egret in the process.
Here I was at the actual ocean rather than the intracoastal waterway but there were no Manatees, just a lot of very tame Turnstones. The open ocean is in fact behind me (but there were no Turnstones in that direction).
Known in America as Ruddy Turnstone (because there is another species Black Turnstone on the Pacific coast), Turnstones are a bit of an enigma, found along shorelines and familiar to birders all over the world in the non-breeding season, they breed only in small areas of the high arctic, places that few people ever get to.
I pulled in as I re-crossed the bridge as I had seen two dots in the distance. They proved to be Magnificent Frigatebirds, another ABA area tick.
Not taken on this trip, but here’s a pair of Magnificent Frigatebirds taken in the Caribbean in 2017.
By the time I got back to the Manatee centre it was 10:00 and it was open. The lady there said that because it was so hot the Manatees would have moved out into the intracoastal waterway and the best way to see them was to join a boat trip which departed at 10:30.
Nice boat trip, lots of cormorants, a few shorebirds, White Ibis (above) and herons …
… and of course lots of Brown Pelicans.
I hadn’t realised that pelicans were that dangerous!
We had good views of Bottle-nosed Dolphins but no Manatees.
So now it was time to head down to West Palm Beach where I found Manatee Lagoon sheltering behind the local power station.
The warm water outflow from the power station attracts hundreds of them during the winter, but not today due to the unseasonal high temperatures which were being measured in 80s F not the expected mid 60s (that an increase from 18 C to 28 C for everybody who doesn’t live in the USA, Palau, Cayman Is, Belize or the Bahamas). Apparently there were four there yesterday, which explains why I said earlier that I regretted my decision to head north after seeing the scrub-jays yesterday as there would have been time to drive south to West Palm Beach see the Manatees and get to Lake Kissimmee in time for the boat trip.
I did get to see a number of Barracuda and Tarpon, huge fish that were clearly visible from the observation deck, I was told Manatees might swim by just off the viewing platform, but I was there for a couple of hours and saw nothing. I left and crossed the bridge to the outer banks and headed for John D McArthur Beach State Park (that’s a hell of a long name for a park). I’d hoped to find vantage points where I could scan the lagoon but it was all dense mangroves with few gaps. I managed to see a Blue-grey Gnatcatcher but little else. I returned to Manatee Lagoon in the hope that as the day cooled they might return but I arrived at 1605 to find they had closed five minutes earlier.
I had to be in Miami the following morning, so with a profound sense of disappointment I joined the I-95 and headed south. Soon the traffic built up and the traffic slowed. In spite of there being six lanes progress alternated between fast and very slow. I have driven in twenty-four of the fifty states, including in the cities of New York, Washington, Los Angeles and San Francisco, but have never seen such driving in the USA as I as encountered that afternoon. There were regular heavy showers but that didn’t deter some from driving at 80mph weaving in and out of the six lanes to gain a slight advantage. My guide the following day said ‘you have to realise that in Miami you’re not in the USA, you’re in Latin America’! (this photo is of the highways around Miami Airport taken from the plane as I left Miami and not necessarily of the I-95).
Rather than try and find target species by navigating the complex intersections of Miami’s highways I had booked a tour with Nature is Awesome guide Angel Abreu, Miami is full of introduced species and probably has (along with Hawaii) the highest number of introduced species in the world. One I was interested in seeing was Spot-breasted Oriole, a species I saw in Costa Rica in 2017 but not of course within the ABA area. This species at least looks like it belongs in the USA …
… unlike the Mitred Parakeet of southern South America. I suppose the UK equivalent would be comparing Little Owl to Rose-ringed Parakeet the former looks like it belongs but the latter doesn’t, even if both were introduced.
A bird that occurs in the northern Caribbean but in the States can only be found in parts of Miami and through the Florida Keys is White-crowned Pigeon. I thought we would have to search mangrove forests for them but here were a few sitting on wires in a suburban area.
The immature bird on the left can be identified by its grey not white cap.
Speaking of mangroves we went on to an area of dense mangroves where we tried but failed to see Mangrove Cuckoo (but I have seen quite a few in the Caribbean and Yucatan Mexico).
One bird we did see in the mangroves was Eastern Phoebe, either an early migrant or a wintering bird.
We did come across quite a few Yellow-crowned Night Herons.
We get Black-crowned Night Herons in Europe and they occasionally occur in the UK but Yellow-crowned but as far as I know has not been recorded in the Western Palearctic except for once or twice in the Azores.
1st year Yellow-crowned Night Herons are quite unlike the adults but of course have a similar dumpy shape.
We passed a rubbish tip on the way to the coast with a huge cloud of Turkey Vultures above it. It was clear that there was a continuous stream of them arriving from the south, migrating up from their wintering grounds via the Caribbean islands.
There were plenty of Turkey Vultures in the trees as well.
Once we reached Biscayne Bay we took a walk along the shore but soon we had to retreat back to the cars due to rain associated with a fast moving cold front. The sky quickly turned dark and a number of large columns of migrating Turkey Vultures appeared, their migration no doubt interrupted by the weather.
By using a wider field of view you can see how huge these columns or ‘kettles’ were.
Once the heavy rain had stopped we visited some lakes where we saw the introduced Green Iguana …
… and the native American Crocodile.
Other lakes held Wood Storks, Blue-winged Teal and American Coot. There is a single drake Green-winged Teal in the background.
Most of these ducks are Green-winged Teal. They are treated as a separate species in the UK from our abundant Eurasian Teal, but not so in the ABA area because they follow the Clements Checklist rather than the one produced by the IOC. Thing is they are, at least in males quite distinctive and although a number are seen each winter in the UK and they often remain into the spring there is been little or no evidence of hybridisation. On the far right of the photo is a Mottled Duck, a close relative of Mallard but with both sexes looking (almost) the same.
This pair of Wood Storks were a fine sight, seen close by due to the shielding provided by the vegetation. I could watch them probing in the mud with bills open ready to snap shut on some unsuspecting prey.
I’ve no idea what this beautiful dragonfly is, so if anyone can enlighten me contact me directly or via the comments below.
We finally returned to suburbia and beautiful big houses along the Miami’s many canals, we failed to see the target munias and parrots …
… but we did see the localised Bronzed Cowbird in a supermarket carpark. This species is only found in the Gulf States and along the Mexican border in the ABA area, although is common further south.
The dark clouds of the storm soon passed and blue skies returned. There were plenty of widespread Nearctic birds around, as well as the Florida specials, like this Loggerhead Shrike. The trip had been a great success for the birds but it still looked that I would be leaving Florida without my second lifer – the Manatee. However it was Angel to the rescue as he took me to a place where there was a fresh water outflow out into the salt water channels …
… and there to my delight were a couple of Manatees. Ok, perhaps I’d have got a better view of them at West Palm Beach Manatee Centre where you can look straight down on them, but beggars can’t be choosers.
In fact if I play with another image and remove the green glare by reducing the colour saturation to zero then the image isn’t too bad. Of course I was delighted to get this last minute reprieve.
I had a few hours on the 22nd before I flew to Georgetown in Guyana and Angel suggested I visit Key Biscayne, an island to the south-east of Miami at the north of Biscayne Bay connected to the mainland by a bridge. When I arrived at dawn it was raining but that soon cleared. This early in the year I hadn’t expected passerine migration but that’s just what I got, it was classic ‘fall’ conditions after all (I mean classic conditions for a fall-out of migrants, not that it was like autumn!). The bird in the photo is an introduced Egyptian Goose. I hadn’t realised that they and domestic type Muscovy Ducks would be common all over the city.
Most of the warblers I had seen so far could be considered winter visitors, but as the rain eased the park was full of passage warblers daring about from tree to tree and steadily making their way north. As is always the case in a ‘fall’ of migrants they had all gone within the hour. Palm Warblers were the commonest with perhaps 200 seen …
… I also saw about 100 of the delightful Parula Warbler (above) and small numbers of Myrtle Warbler (formerly Yellow-rumped Warbler until it was re-split into Myrtle, Audubon’s and Goldman’s), the lovely Black-and-white Warbler (nicknamed the ‘humbug warbler’ back home), Prairie Warbler, Common Yellowthroat, American Redstart and perhaps best of all – the stonking Yellow-throated Warbler.
With the migrants moving on I headed for the nearby beach. looking for shorebirds, gulls and terns.
One of the first birds I saw was this Fish Crow. I had seen many crows whilst driving over the last few days but I was unsure if they were the largely coastal Fish Crow or the very widespread American Crow. This bird was making the characteristic nasal ‘cah’ so there was no doubt of its identity.
There were quite a few waders/shorebirds on the beach, (Brits say waders, Americans shorebirds, but there are waders that don’t wade and plenty of other birds that aren’t waders that do, similarly not all shorebirds are found on the shore and plenty of birds that aren’t shorebirds are). This is a winter plumaged Sanderling, like Turnstone it can be found on the shorelines of most of the world during the non-breeding season but only breeds in a small area in the very far north.
The commonest wader on the beach was Semi-palmated Plover, a close relative of our Ringed Plover. Differences in face pattern and the small ‘semi-palmations between just two of the toes are hard to pick out and as far as I know all UK records of this species have been first located by its very different call.
With the Semi-P Plovers were a small numbers of the delightful and much rarer Piping Plover.
Also with the plovers was this ‘peep’. In the field the legs looked greenish and due to that and the very small size, I presumed it was a Least Sandpiper, although the legs were nowhere near as yellow as the ones I saw on Lake Kissimmee. If I’ve got this wrong please let me know in the comments.
Also seen were was a number of Wilson’s Plovers (foreground), their large bills making them easy to identify.
In the ABA area this species is confined largely to shorelines from the Carolinas to Texas.
Of course there were gulls on the beach. Always tricky to age and identify this was a good opportunity to photograph some of the American species starting with a 1st winter American Herring Gull, the diagnostic all-black tail can be seen clearly …
… and can also be seen in this photo. This species is most easily identified in first year plumage and nearly all the UK records are of first years. I’m surprised the AOU continues to lump this with European Herring Gull when genetic analysis clearly shows it to be more closely related (and possibly conspecific with) Vega Gull of eastern Siberia, rather than European Herring Gull.
A bigger surprise was the numbers of Lesser Black-backed Gulls. A common breeder and wintering species in northern Europe (a lake near us has at least 2000 coming to roost in winter). I knew that a few, perhaps Greenland breeders, wintered in eastern North America but I hadn’t expected to see five or more in one place. This of course is in full adult plumage.
This appears to be a 3rd winter Lesser Black-backed (right) with an 1st winter American Herring Gull.
Another 3rd winter with two 1st winter American Herring Gulls showing the lack white tips to the primaries in some birds of this age.
Ring-billed Gull, (a Common Gull sized species) was common as well. This species wasn’t recorded in the UK until 1973, once ID criteria were widely known the number recorded annually exploded and it was soon dropped of the official rarity list. However by the start of the ‘naughties’ UK numbers sharply decreased and you’re no longer likely to just bump into one in the course of routine birding
In this phot there is (right to left at the back) an adult LBBG, two Laughing Gulls, an abundant species along the east coast, adult American Herring Gull and a rather small ‘large gull’ who’s identity I’m not sure of but could be a 2nd winter LBBG. In the foreground are a flock of Royal Terns, recently split from their African counterpart (which has now been renamed West African Crested Tern).
Among the Royal Terns was one that was colour ringed (thanks to Martin Reid of Texas who noticed the colour ring) and I sent the details off to the USGS who administer the bird ringing/banding scheme. I got this rather nice ‘certificate of achievement’ which showed that it was ringed as a pullus in Virginia in 2018. I’m afraid I couldn’t find a way of converting the pdf they sent me to a jpg for this post so I ended up doing it the old fashioned way – printing it and then photographing the print, hence the slightly lopsided and unevenly lit appearance).
Well that was the end of a very enjoyable few days in Florida with almost all targets under the belt. I caught the flight to Georgetown, Guyana in the afternoon and arrived that evening.
So let’s end the photos with a one of the best birds seen on that final morning, a lovely breeding plumage male Piping Plover.
However I have one final comment, this is taken from my notes written at the time:
Miami has the reputation as one of the least friendly airports in the world. Having taken off your belt and shoes, emptied your pockets, placed all your stuff on the scanner conveyer, to be shouted at ‘did I give you permission to move?’ is downright rude and unnecessary. I’ve travelled through many hundred airports in something like 130 countries and have only seen that low level of service in the most remote parts of Russia.
Although I’ve only birded in Florida twice, I’ve passed through Miami airport a number of times on route to or from the Neotropics and have always felt that customer service is rock bottom. I have said that this aggressive attitude wouldn’t stop me visiting Florida, but it certainly means that I would route a visit to the Neotropics via some other hub like Madrid.
The West Pacific Odyssey (often abbreviated to WPO) is a classic birding journey. Just like its ‘sister voyage’ the Atlantic Odyssey, this comes about every (northern) spring as Heritage Expedition vessel Professor Khromov (aka Spirit of Enderby) is relocated from the Antarctic at the end of the southern summer to the Arctic for the start of the northern summer.
This gives birders and other interested travellers a chance to see the diverse seabirds of the western Pacific as well as a number of seldom-visited islands on-route.
Due to earlier problems in visiting sites in Japanese waters this trip had been truncated to the South-west Pacific Odyssey but these issues were resolved and the full trip was offered for 2018. However there were ‘operational problems’ (timing of the annual refit etc) which prevented the trip from going ahead and it was deferred to 2019 – and fortunately those who transferred, kept the 2018 price.
This the first of a number of posts about the voyage, I don’t know at this stage how many there will be, but there will be a mix of pelagic seabirds and cetaceans along with photos taken on land. Not all of the planned landings took place, this was the only downside to an otherwise excellent trip.
Most of the photos are mine, the few that aren’t or were taken from another pelagic trip are cleared marked.
We travelled on the Professor Khromov, which the New Zealand company Heritage Expeditions likes to call ‘The Spirit of Enderby’. I’ve been on two other expeditions in this vessel; to the Subantarctic Islands of New Zealand in 2004 and to Russia’s Kuril and Commander Islands, Kamchatka and Sakhalin in 2017. I’ve also been to the Falklands, South Georgia and Antarctica on the sister ship Akademik Shuleykin in 1998. There were nine ships of this class built in the 80s as Russian ‘research’ vessels (a euphemism for American submarine detection) and were ice strengthened and had the capacity to remain at sea without re-provisioning for extended periods of time. As soon as they were in service the Cold War was over and many were converted for ‘adventure tourism’ in high latitudes. They have given good service but are now looking rather dated. The electronics on the bridge and communication room looks 1940s vintage but they are tough and can withstand anything the polar seas can throw at them. The Professor Khromov is seen here moored off Norfolk Island.
The cruise from Tauranga in New Zealand to Yokohama in Japan took 31 days, add to that three days to get there and one to get back and I was away from home for almost five weeks. We disembarked at Norfolk Island, New Caledonia, four places in the Solomon Islands and Chuuk in Micronesia. Unfortunately due to mixture of bad weather and official intransigence we made no landfalls in Japan except at Yokohama. The cruise covered 5650 nautical miles (10500km), we collectively saw 248 bird species including 48 ‘tubenoses’ and 21 species of cetacean. We visited eleven islands in six countries.
I left home on the 12th March 2019 and took a flight from Heathrow to Hong Kong. With the time difference it was mid morning on the 14th before I landed at Auckland in New Zealand. After two very long flights I was glad to get off the plane. My friend Steve, who had gone to NZ a few days earlier to attempt to see a Kiwi met me at Auckland airport. I’m glad he was driving as I was far too tired to be behind the wheel.
We stopped at the wader spot spot of Miranda. The waders were some distance away as the tide had dropped but we were able to identify Wrybills and Double-banded Plovers among the many Bar-tailed Godwits. More approachable birds included this White-faced Heron …
… and the inevitable Pied Stilts …
… and Grey Teal.
We stayed overnight in Tauranga …
… where we saw a few more birds like Silver Gull (formerly split as Red-billed Gull but now lumped with the Australian species) …
… the introduced Black Swan …
… and the only endemic New Zealand passerine I was to see on the tour – the Tui (one of four extant bird species that have the honour of having the shortest English name of all – I’ll let you puzzle over the other three).
The clients met up at a hotel, there were 48 of us. At least a dozen I knew from UK birding or previous foreign trips. There was time to wander around before the bus came to take us to the docks. People in the shops kept asking if we were from the big cruise liner that was already docked. Certainly not – our ship was much, much smaller.
Along the shore at Tauranga there were good numbers of Variable Oystercatchers …
… and a bird that is very widespread in the Southern Hemisphere – Kelp Gull. This is an adult …
… and this is a first year bird.
In the late afternoon with the cabins all allocated, luggage stowed, customs cleared etc we cast off and the voyage began. Our starting location was 37 39’S 176 01’E.
We made our way out of Tauranga bay and into the open ocean …
… we passes a number of islands to port as we headed north. The rest of the day was taken up with introductions, orientation lectures and the inevitable lifeboat drill.
We woke the next day at the northern end of the Hauraki Gulf. We approached the Mokohinau Islands …
… the site of a Australasian Gannet colony.
Australasian Gannet breeds, as the name suggests, in New Zealand and Australia and is very similar to our Northern Gannet except for having black in the secondaries and a long black gular stripe. We saw several hundred today, a single one the next day, then none.
We came across this dense flock of Silver Gulls feeding on what was presumably a huge bait ball. A few Buller’s Shearwaters (Top right) joined the flock …
… also seen were a number of the small Fluttering Shearwaters and a couple of the tiny Grey Ternlets (or Grey Noddy).
Grey Ternlet was the first life bird of the trip for me!
In 2009 I did a comprehensive birding tour of New Zealand which included a pelagic trip into the Haukaki Gulf. We did well, but missed one species, the Black (or Parkinson’s) Petrel. There were no such problems here as we were to see around 30 today and similar numbers the next day.
The northern most tip of New Zealand is a group of islands known as the Three Kings. We were 13 miles off there at dawn at 33 57’S 172 24’E and approached closer during the morning, sea birding was superb but our number one target was storm-petrels.
In this one photo there are three species of storm-petrel, White-faced on the left, Wilson’s lower centre and above it the enigmatic New Zealand Storm-petrel.
This photo wasn’t taken on the trip but from a small boat off the coast of North Carolina but it shows a number of birds we saw on the WPO. The large bird is an Arctic Skua (or Parasitic Jaeger) a bird that breeds in the arctic and subarctic (as far south as northern Scotland) and winters as far south as NZ. The two storm-petrels close to it are, as far as I can tell, Band-rumped. This complex probably consists of multiple species. We were only to see a few on the WPO and all were to the north of here and included one of a larger form that could be as yet undescribed. The lower left bird and the three on the right are Wilson’s Storm-petrels, the most numerous seabird and one of the most numerous of all birds in the world. Breeding in the Antarctic they are found in most oceans of the world at some time of the year. I saw a number off the Three Kings and others saw the odd one further north. Bizarrely it has been shown that the so called ‘northern storm-petrels’ are not closely related to ‘southern storm-petrels and they are found before and after the albatrosses in world bird lists. So the top two stormies on the left are not even in the same family as the top two on the right!
But the stormy we all wanted to see was the New Zealand Storm-petrel. This bird has a most interesting history. First collected in 1827, it was later claimed, without any justification, that Wilson’s Storm-petrels have paler streakier bellies the nearer they bred to the equator. So after this it was forgotten about and lost to history until it was rediscovered by a group of British and New Zealand birders in 2003 and given back its rightful specific status. It is likely that it persisted in tiny numbers all those years, breeding on a rat-infested island in the Hauraki Gulf. When the rats were removed, as they have been from many of these islands, the population started to bounce back. On my pelagic in 2009 I saw just one, here we saw 25 …
… including three together along with a White-faced Storm-petrel.
White-faced Storm-petrel breeds in the North Atlantic, South Atlantic, off South Australia, around Kermadec Islands and New Zealand and according to the book ‘Oceanic Birds of the World’ by Steve Howell et al they could comprise between 4 and 6 different species!
Here L-R is a Wilson’s Stormie, a New Zealand Stormie and a Black Petrel.
Black Petrels were seen regularly in these waters, like NZ Stormie they only breed around the Hauraki Gulf and have been heavily impacted by introduced rats and cats. With these aliens being slowly removed their numbers are increasing from being close to extinction to perhaps 10,000 birds today. On upper mandible, close to the base, you can see the salt excreting tubes that give tubenoses (members of the Order Procelliformes) their name.
Black Petrels are in the genus Procellaria (along with White-chinned, which has recently occurred in the UK and two other species). They have a very different jizz and flight action to the Pterodroma petrels and certainly are an impressive sight, especially when seen head on.
Another species that we only saw in the southern leg of the trip was this Fairy Prion. Prions are a group of six fast moving and hard to separate tubenoses that occur mainly in subantarctic/antarctic water. This Fairy Prion was photographed by Pete Morris on the Subantarctic Islands of New Zealand cruise in 2004.
The waters around New Zealand are probably the best in the world for albatrosses, however we saw few on this trip. Most move to the south to feed and this year the water was particularly warm so wouldn’t have been suitable for these subantarctic birds. This is a Antipodean Albatross, a split from Wandering Albatross, of the race gibsoni which breeds on islands to the south of NZ.
Another albatross seen was this Northern Royal Albatross, which breeds in the Chatham Islands and at Dunedin in South Island of NZ. The solid black wings (with some specking as in here on older males), lack of black tip to the tail and a fine black cutting edge to the bill distinguishes it from the ‘wandering’ group. Photo taken by Pete Morris on the Subantarctic Islands of New Zealand cruise in 2004.
Of the several species of shearwater, Bullwer’s was the most numerous …
… easily identified by its striking upperwing pattern, these birds wander as far as California in the non-breeding season.
Two petrels in the genus Pterodroma – Cook’s Petrel …
… and White-necked Petrel. With their fast, high arcing flight and elegant appearance Pterodroma petrels are among the most sought after of all seabirds.
There were a number of other excellent sightings none of which I got photos of; the first was ‘Magnificent Petrel’ currently described as a race of Cook’s Petrel but probably deserving species status in it’s own right, see here for an account of its recent discovery, Grey-faced Petrel (the first time I’ve seen it since the split from Great-winged), the local form of Little Shearwater (which like most of the Little Shearwater complex is probably a species in its own right), the rarely observed Pycroft’s Petrel, Kermadec Petrel which we’ll see in the next post …
… and what appeared to be the incredibly rare Fiji Petrel. I was slow getting on to this bird when it was first found and struggled to pick it up. The situation was made worse as ace Japanese seawatcher Hero Tanoi called ‘it’s got a black body’ unfortunately in the commotion all I heard was ‘it’s a Black Noddy’ which isn’t rare at all! Fortunately the ship was turned round, a chum slick was laid and the bird was encountered again. The known breeding population near Fiji is only about 50 pairs but as there have been other sightings in the Western Pacific it may be that there is an undiscovered population there, alternatively these birds may be a different species. This photo of an undoubted Fiji Petrel is by Dr. Jorg Kretzschmar/NatureFiji-Mareqeti Viti Fiji.
I haven’t mentioned cetaceans yet, we certainly saw a good variety throughout the trip. Here a number of Long-finned Pilot Whales are seen with Bottle-nosed Dolphins. The photo looks a little confusing. On the left a Pilot Whale is spy-hopping showing the characteristic mark on the throat, a smaller individual has risen out of the water beside it, whilst a dolphin swims in front and another dolphin is seen just left of centre.. Further back two more Pilot Whales swim towards the camera
The characteristic dorsal fin of an adult Pilot whale can be seen, the other fin belong to dolphins. The birds are Black Petrels.
The bulbous head of a Pilot Whale and the white patch on the back of an adult male can be seen in this photo, with a Black Petrel for company of course.
One further seabird is worth mentioning in these southern waters the ‘Tasman Booby’ a race of Masked Booby that breeds on Lord Howe, Norfolk Island and the Kermadecs. Unlike the other races of Masked Booby it has a dark eye.
This must have been the most seabird rich section of the entire trip, certainly so for the Southern Hemisphere. On the morning of the third day we anchored off the Australian administered Norfolk Island (at 29 04’N 167 57’E) which will be the subject of the next post.
This post deals solely with the seabirds we saw on the pelagic trips. If anyone is interested in these seabirds then I would highly recommend reading Magnus Robb and Killian Mullarney’s ‘Petrels night and day (Sound Approach)
The commonest pelagic seabird was the Cory’s Shearwater which breeds in large numbers in the islands.
The species has recently been split into three; the smaller Cape Verde Shearwater Calonectris edwardsii, Scopoli’s Shearwater C diomeda whose breeding is almost confined to the Mediterranean (but winters off South Africa so must traverse the Atlantic) and Cory’s Shearwater C borealis which breeds only in the Azores, Madeira, Canary and related islands.
One of the largest of shearwaters, Cory’s is easy to separate from Great, but telling it from a Scopoli’s on the pattern of white in the outer underwing would require a photo.
The further out to sea we got the scarcer Cory’s and the commoner Great Shearwaters became.
Great Shearwaters breed in the Tristan da Cunha group in the south Atlantic. After breeding they undergo a tremendous loop migration that takes them north to the Grand Banks off America and then south through the eastern Atlantic in our autumn.
Sooty Shearwaters also breed in the Southern Atlantic and around Australia and New Zealand. Atlantic populations undergo a loop migration like Great Shearwaters although they peak in the eastern Atlantic a bit later in the autumn. The other tw shearwaters, Manx and Barolo’s were too distant or briefly seen to be photographed.
We saw all four species of North Atlantic skua/jaeger; three Long-taileds (all adults) 3 Arctic/Parasitic, one Pom ……
… and this bird which we assumed was a 2nd cy Great Skua (or Bonxie) from its moult pattern. South Polar Skua is another possibility, as like the large shearwaters it undergoes an Atlantic loop migration. If you can identify this bird conclusively either way then please leave a message. Postscript: Dani Lopez-Velasco, who wrote a paper on the identification of South Polar Skua has conclusively identified it as a South Polar.
Far smaller than the shearwaters but larger than storm petrels, the little Bulwer’s Petrel was a wonderful sight. I saw seven during the trip.
The highlight the trip was the great views we got of four species of storm petrel. Our friend, Magnus Robb, wrote a wonderful book on the seabirds of the north Atlantic (Petrels Night and Day – The Sound Approach) and based mainly on vocalisations split ‘band-rumped storm petrel’ into four species. The form breeding on two islets off Graciosa, was already being described as Monteiro’s SP (photo above), it breeds in the summer whilst the other population, called Grant’s Storm Petrel (after the late and much missed birding guru Peter Grant) breeds in the winter. Grant’s is not confined to the Azores but also breeds (in winter) in the Canaries and Madeira and associated islands where it occurs with a third form, Madeiran Storm Petrel (that breeds in the summer). The fourth form breeds only in the Cape Verde Islands. Monteiro’s is treated as a full species by the world’s checklists but Grant’s is not recognised at all. All forms are vocally distinct and to some extent, genetically distinct. Thus we have a summer and winter breeding population in the Azores that are treated as two species and a summer and winter breeding population in the Canaries and Madeira that are treated as the same species. Something needs to change!
At this time of year Monteiro’s is ending its breeding cycle and is starting to moult and this can be clearly seen as a notch in the wing where the new, still growing inner primaries abut the old faded outer primaries. On some it was striking and could even be seen with naked eye. Another advantage of visiting in August is that this year’s juveniles will still be in the nest, so there is no confusion with recently fledged individuals with fresh flight feathers. Also Monteiro’s shows a clear notch in the tail, whereas Grant’s does not.
I am confident this is a Grant’s Storm Petrel with fresh flight feathers with no evidence of moult and a square ended tail.
But some birds seem intermediate – the secondaries on this bird look fresh and contrast with the primaries, but there is no evidence of moult. Do Grant’s look like this post moult? There is a small tail fork but not as obvious as on the Monteiro’s. Is this another Grant’s?
The same can be said about this bird, is the apparent tail fork caused by the feet showing below the tail and is that a notch in the wing caused by moult or just the way the wing is bent? I think it’s a Grant’s but I’d appreciate informed comments.
The best bird of the trip, was another species of storm petrel, the legendary Swinhoe’s. Breeding off Japan and Korea and wintering in the Indian Ocean, hardly surprisingly the only historic WP record was from Eilat, but in the 80s there was as series of captures by ringers at storm petrel colonies in Madeira, the Canaries, France and even the UK. They must be breeding somewhere in the north Atlantic! Since then there have been several more captures in the UK (including the last two years on Fair Isle) but the bird remains extremely hard to catch up with. As one of my goals is to see every bird on the British list somewhere in the world (now just four to go, Ascension Frigatebird, Aleutian Tern, Tufted Puffin and Red-throated Thrush) then seeing a Swinhoe’s had become a high priority.
A third white-rumped species was Wilson’s Storm Petrel which breeds in Antarctica and also undergoes a loop migration, appearing in the eastern Atlantic in late summer. As well as being smaller with longer legs, a more curved wing shape and a more fluttery flight they can be distinguished by their moult pattern, at this time of year they have moulted all the primaries except the outer one or two.
This bird seems to have replaced all its primaries in the left wing but is still growing the outermost primaries in the right wing.
Common Terns lived up to their name but in spite of the Azores holding the WP’s largest population of Roseate Terns, they were surprisingly scarce, with the only sizable flock being seen briefly on the Teceira breakwater as we departed on the ferry.
Ilheu da Praia, a tiny islet off the NE of Graciosa not only holds almost the entire world’s population of Monteiro’s Storm Petrel but also the WP’s only breeding Sooty Terns. On the day we visited the sea was rough and we couldn’t come any closer to the island.
However the single juvenile did briefly buzz the boat on a couple of occasions.
The atlantis race of Yellow-legged Gull is a very impressive bird indeed. The heavily streaked hood and pale eye are distinctive. I have heard that a paper is in preparation which advocates its elevation to species status. Intermediate populations in the Canaries and Madeira are the problem with this approach however.
I said this post was only about seabirds but I couldn’t resist including a couple of photos of Bottle-nosed Dolphins. We also saw Atlantic Spotted Dolphins, a Sperm Whale and the beaked whales that I uploaded on the last post.
That concludes our Azores pelagic trip. In the words of the late great Douglas Adams ‘so long and thanks for all the fish’
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