Overnight Pelagic, 08/26/24

At 6:00 am, on Monday of this past week, I joined Rob Stone and we set sail on the Brookline Birding Club’s overnight pelagic birding trip. We boarded the Hellen H, a 100 foot deep sea fishing boat in Hyannis, Massachusetts, and headed out to the Hydrographer Canyon area (east and south of Cape Cod).

As always, I started the trip with my usual anxieties – what would the ship be like? Where would I store my stuff? Where would I sleep? What would the restrooms be like? Would we get any good birds? Some these anxieties were well founded – as we boarded, it was difficult to determine what areas were up for grabs and which had been taken already. I ended up stashing my gear under some occupied benches in the cabin; less than ideal, but at least my gear was out of my hands and I could wander the boat and start doing some birding. I eventually found an area on the deck which looked good for sleeping (and it was, to a point – more on that later). The layout of the lower deck was nice and lended itself to good birding. The upper deck, where I had spend most of my time birding on previous pelagics, was not as accommodating as it was filled with benches and sleeping areas which would allow for easy movement from one side of the boat to the other. And the men’s room. It was a tremendous upgrade to the restrooms I’ve experienced on every previous pelagic. It had both a urinal and a toilet, with plenty of room and handrails.

As for the birds, they certainly did not disappoint. We located all of my target birds on the first day, and I enjoyed adding a remarkable 5 species to my life list. Here’s a list of highlighted species, with my life birds indicated:

• Red Phalarope
• Red-necked Phalarope
• Long-tailed Jaeger (life bird)
• Pomarine Jaeger (life bird)
• South Polar Skua (life bird)
• Wilson’s Storm-Petrel
• White-face Storm-Petrel (life bird)
• Leach’s Storm-Petrel
• Band-rumped Storm-Petrel
• Black-capped Petrel
• Cory’s Shearwater
• Great Shearwater
• Sooty Shearwater (reported but I did not see)
• Manx Shearwater
• Audubon’s Shearwater (life bird)

And, sleeping. I ultimately did not get very much sleep. I went to sleep on Monday night somewhere between 9:30 and 10:00, as I was exhausted. I slept for a couple of hours and then woke up and started to toss and turn trying get comfortable on the hard deck. Then, around 2:15am, I was dozing when a crew member woke me up to let me know that there was a storm coming through and I’d have to get off the deck or get soaked. A couple waves of some serious thunderstorms rolled through; we enjoyed some of it from the deck (the lightning was fantastic!) until it started coming down sideways and we took refuge in the cabin. I did not get much sleep (other than dozing off from time to time while sitting up on a bench) after that, and I got gradually more and more seasick with the boat being anchored and just rocking away. It wasn’t until first light, when I could see the horizon again, that I started to feel a little bit better.

Tuesday’s birding was as productive as Monday. The first good bird of the day was our second White-faced Storm-Petrel of the trip. We got good looks at both of them, but I’ll tell you that that’s a tough bird to photograph. That didn’t stop me from trying; see my less than stellar result below. On Tuesday we added one really good bird – Black-capped Petrel. The bird was on the move and although I saw it, it was not good looks and I didn’t get any photos. A second South Polar Skua capped off the trip, which was pretty remarkable. In the early afternoon, a thick fog rolled in, and from then on we just were on a steady course heading back to Hyannis. It was an excellent and exhuasting trip.