{"id":8692,"date":"2018-11-07T19:50:24","date_gmt":"2018-11-08T00:50:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/?p=8692"},"modified":"2018-11-07T19:50:24","modified_gmt":"2018-11-08T00:50:24","slug":"interesting-pelagic-11-04-18","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/?p=8692","title":{"rendered":"Interesting Pelagic, 11\/04\/18"},"content":{"rendered":"
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~Great Shearwater at the end of a long day on the water, See Life Paulagics Brooklyn Trip 11\/04\/18.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I would venture to say that See Life Paulagics<\/a>‘ November 4th trip out of Brooklyn was not among their most productive in terms of seeing target birds. Unfortunately, it just comes with the territory. In spite of doing all the right things to find and attract birds, some days are just going to be \u00a0better than others. Of the target species listed for the trip (Red Phalarope, Manx, Cory\u2019s and Great Shearwaters, Northern Fulmar, Pomarine Jaeger, and \u00a0Great Skua), we only saw Manx and Great Shearwaters. We did have all the expected gulls, scoters, and many Northern Gannets in every type of plumage you can imagine (they put on a real show, see below). Other good birds included: Black-legged Kittiwake (3-4), Lesser Black-backed Gull (3), Parasitic Jaeger (3), Bonaparte’s Gull (35+), and what I believe they eventually identified as Wilson’s Storm-Petrel (1 or 2). The Wilson’s Storm-Petrel was apparently a good find; they should have left the area by this time of year.<\/p>\n

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~Northern Gannet up close and personal. These trips provide a great look at this bird – it’s really a treat. See Life Paulagics Brooklyn Trip, 11\/04\/18.~\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One of the more interesting things about the trip was the unbelievably large number of passerines we saw out there. By my count, we had at least 13 species of songbirds: Dark-eyed Junco, Purple Finch, Marsh Wren, Winter Wren, Brown-headed Cowbird, Red-winged Blackbird, Red-breasted Nuthatch, American Goldfinch, American Robin, Golden-crowned Kinglet, Yellow-rumped Warbler, White-throated Sparrow, and Pine Siskin! Add to that two bats! Apparently Saturday’s strong west winds blew many birds off course. The Paulagics crew came prepared for it, however. They brought two potted plants, some loose brush cuttings, plenty of bird seed, and water dishes. Some of the songbirds landed on the boat for a rest and to hopefully refuel. Unfortunately, others seemed too intimidated by all the humans on-board and would not land, or if they did it was only briefly. The Dark-eyed Junco made itself at home on the boat. When it landed, it was in dire straits. But after getting some water and food it was up and about, always under foot so you had to be very careful not to step on it. A Brown-headed Cowbird joined it; they both stayed for the duration, only flying once we were on land again. For me, it was sad to see these passerines out of their element and in potential peril, but it was also sweet to be able to help a few of them.<\/p>\n

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~Crazy shot of a Red-winged Blackbird out at sea. See Life Paulagics Brooklyn Trip, 11\/04\/18.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Later in the afternoon, we came across a large group of Northern Gannets actively feeding. It was pretty incredible to watch them diving repeatedly into one relatively small area. Then, the first whale appeared and then the Common Dolphins became apparent. In all there were two Humpback Whales and who-knows-how-many Common Dolphins. The dolphins were curious and spent much time swimming alongside the boat. It was a pretty incredible show to watch, but one that I found difficult to photograph. Part of my problem is that I didn’t know where to look – there was so much going on all around the boat. I tried to document it for a bit, but then stopped and just enjoyed the show. In my opinion, between the gannets and the cetaceans, this show saved the pelagic. As expected, the trip offered plenty of photo ops, so enjoy the pics.<\/p>\n

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~Great Shearwaters were, in my opinion, the best bird\/photo op combination of the trip. Nice looking bird and we had a good number of them around the boat at any given time. See Life Paulagics Brooklyn Trip, 11\/04\/18.~\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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~What a treat to watch these dudes. NOGA in flight low over the water, See Life Paulagics Brooklyn Trip, 11\/04\/18.~\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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~I was having a hard time with this bird. We had at least a couple first winter Lesser Black-backed Gulls during the day. Once I lost it in the flock of gulls following the boat, it was hard for me to pick it \u00a0out again without help. See Life Paulagics Brooklyn Trip, 11\/04\/18.~\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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~Common Dolphins! Looks like and adult and a young dolphin to me. This photo has a strange quality to me – I’m not sure why, but it almost seems like the dolphins were pasted there. \u00a0See Life Paulagics Brooklyn Trip, 11\/04\/18.~\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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~Northern Gannet going down for a bite to eat. See Life Paulagics Brooklyn Trip, 11\/04\/\/18.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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~Now this bird will fly very close to the water, navigating flawlessly. Great Shearwater during See Life Paulagics’ Brooklyn Trip, 11\/04\/18.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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~Northern Gannets! This was awesome to watch! See Life Paulagics Brooklyn Trip, 11\/04\/18.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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~NOGA contemplating a dive. See Life Paulagics Brooklyn Trip, 11\/04\/18.~\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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~Lesser Black-backed Gull on the water. See Life Paulagics Brooklyn Trip, 11\/04\/18.~\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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~A mix of Surf and Black Scoters in flight. See Life Paulagics Brooklyn Trip, 11\/04\/18.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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~This was one smart junco, he\/she knew a good thing – plenty of food and water AND a free trip back to land! Hard to beat that. See Life Paulagics Brooklyn Trip, 11\/04\/18.~\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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~I really didn’t get any good whale shots, but I had to include at least one. See Life Paulagics Brooklyn Trip, 11\/04\/18.~\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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~LIFER! I was happy to get at least a documentary shot of this bird – MANX SHEARWATER during See Life Paulagics Brooklyn Trip, 11\/04\/18.~\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I would venture to say that See Life Paulagics‘ November 4th trip out of Brooklyn was not among their most productive in terms of seeing target birds. Unfortunately, it just comes with the territory. In spite of doing all the right things to find and attract birds, some days are just going to be \u00a0better … Continue reading “Interesting Pelagic, 11\/04\/18”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[25,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-york-state","category-photos"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5i3kT-2gc","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8692"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8692\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8726,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8692\/revisions\/8726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}