Cuvier's Beaked-Whales and Pelagic Seabirds in New York

July 2019: A way offshore pelagic from Brooklyn in July

Looking back at the blog, I seem to have stopped writing about my local birding and natural history adventures.  I guess the world-birder-travel stuff seems so much more exciting, and the local trips perhaps seems repetitive year-to-year.  But I still get out locally most weekends when I'm in New York, so here's something from closer to home.

Monday, July 22 - 130 miles South of Brooklyn

For most of my 28 years living in New York, pelagic trips were an exercise in futility.  The gulf stream, warm water, and most interesting birds are a very long way from shore in New York.  In North Carolina you can be looking at a wide range of pelagic species an hour from the dock, but in New York you have to steam for 8 hours overnight to get into good water and stand a decent chance of seeing good birds.  For years, folks tried to see things closer in ... I chartered a few boats myself with mixed results ... and then an enterprising chap called Paul Guris got it all properly worked out.

Paul (and his better half, the lovely Anita) is a sea-birding impresario who puts together pelagic trips along the East Coast, mostly in New York and New Jersey.  In my opinion, he single-handedly turned New York pelagic birding from futile to productive over the course of the last five or six years.  Boats now get regularly filled, get out to good waters for decent amounts of time, and see excellent birds.  Indeed over the last few years, Paul's "Paulagics" have turned up Fea's Petrel, Trinidade Petrel and made previously mega birds like White-faced and Band-rumped Storm-Petrels and Black-capped Petrel into regular, gettable birds in New York.

Wilson's Storm-Petrels

This year the boat captains have been making things difficult but when the opportunity to sail on a July 'Paulagic' came up, I signed up quickly.

I should say straight up, I am not a good sailor.  I have been seasick on pelagic boats all over the world, and may unfortunately be semi-famous for it.  I have never been on a Brian Patteson trip in North Carolina without contributing to the chum line and have even failed to hold it together on the relatively placid waters of Monterey Bay.  But 'you don't look, you don't see' so I keep going, keep optimistically taking my dramamine (which unfortunately usually puts me to sleep for half of the trip) and keep soldiering on.  Sea-birds are important ... and cetaceans are even better.

So 9pm Sunday night and off we go again (how do you spend your Sunday nights?).  There's a certain amount of socializing on these trips as they gather together a broad group of New York birders who don't get to see each other every week, but I tend to try to find a quiet bench and spread my sleeping bag early.  Once I've taken my dramamine I'm down for the count, and sleep most of the night, but this time I was vaguely aware that it wasn't the smoothest passage out to the deep water.  Turns out we passed through several thunder storms and took a detour around others, but by dawn we were out where we wanted to be ... over 7,000 feet of water, 130 miles South of New York City.

As the sun came up, the steel gray waters were choppy and the smell of diesel and chum permeated everything on the boat.  I frankly felt somewhat queasy all morning, even passing on the egg and cheese sandwiches that they cooked up in the galley (and I love egg and cheese sandwiches).  But there's something special about dawn on a pelagic trip and, no matter how awful you feel, the excitement of being out there in the deep water takes over and we all staggered to the railing, ready to bird.

Leach's Petrels only show up close to dawn.  It's a strange fact and I'm not sure it applies everywhere, but on New York pelagic trips, the Leach's Petrels are typically seen early in the low light, and then vanish mysteriously.  I'm not sure why, or where they go, but for veteran pelagic birders, the first half hour on the chum slick is Leach's Petrel time and sure enough, they showed up on cue that morning.  A few Band-rumped Petrels showed up too so we got a quick reminder on ID by 'jiz' with the bouncing flight of the Leach's contrasting with the purposeful direct fight of the Band-rumped.

Leach's Petrel

Then, over the next few hours we slowly filled out the list of pelagic birds.  The numbers weren't big, but we got most of the species we expected.  There were a few Great Shearwaters, a couple of Cory's Shearwaters and Audubon's Shearwaters along with a single Manx Shearwater surprisingly far offshore.  An hour or so in I picked up a fast moving back and white bird and called it, but blanked on the name, even though I knew what it was ... Black-capped Petrel.  This species used to be a 'mega' for New York but it's now seen regularly and annually on these trips so we've all gotten a little blasé about them.  Still, in global terms, a very rare bird and they are always fun to watch.  We looked out for it's even rarer cousins too, but it didn't happen that day.

Black-capped Petrel (old photo from N. Carolina)

Beyond the birds, today turned out to be a great day for cetaceans.  First up were a pod of Atlantic Spotted Dolphins, a good contrast to a later pod of Offshore Bottlenose Dolphins.  The stars of the day, from a dolphin perspective, though were undoubtedly a large pod of Risso's Dolphins that stayed close to the boat for a long time and gave great views.

Risso's Dolphins

I also got a New York State life cetacean, a species I'd seen several times in North Carolina but nowhere else, when we bumped into a pod of CUVIER'S BEAKED-WHALES.  This species is a true oddity, with their white heads and goose-like 'beaks', they just look ... well, odd.  They are also famous as the deepest diving mammal species in any ocean (deeper then Sperm Whales, or even Elephant Seals).  That diving ability means that views are typically brief as when these guys dive, they are gone for a while, maybe 40 minutes before they surface again.  We were lucky then to get a decent view on the surface before they headed down to the depths.  A very cool species.

Cuvier's Beaked Whales

All too soon however, it was time to start making the long run back to shore with a plan to be back at the dock around 9pm.  They way in is often dull.  The die-hard birders persevere and may add a few things (a hammerhead shark sp. and a sea-turtle sp. in this case) but it's generally pretty birdless.  Being a cynical old birder, and high on dramamine, I usually sleep most of the way back in and that was pretty much the case that day.  When we got close to shore though, the weather started to look a little challenging.  We'd been avoiding thunder storms all through the trip, but as we got back closer to Brooklyn,  it was obvious that we were going to have to pass though one in order to get home.

Ahead of us was a wall of black.  The seas were blue and the skies were clear where we were, but we were going to have to go through some very dark and scary looking waters.  As we got closer everyone made their way down to the cabin and when we hit the edge of the storm, all hell broke loose.  From relatively calm seas the waters turned to ugly boiling churn with waves breaking over the bow and thumping down against the sides of the cabin.  It quite literally went dark, from day to night, and as the captain labored to keep the bow into the waves, our progress slowed to a crawl.  Then things got really ugly, a brush from a water-spout slammed the side of the boat and several of the large (12 foot by 3 foot) plastic windows on the boat cabin exploded out of their frames and crashed into the cabin with wind and waves blasting in behind them.  Scenes from the end of the Titanic movies came to mind, and there was me without my dinner jacket.  We did remain surprisingly calm though and I found myself pressed up against a window with other passengers trying to keep the remaining panels in their frames.  Everyone was soaked and a bit rattled but after a very tense 15 minutes or so, the maelstrom started to subside, the sky slowly lightened, and we passed out of the roaring waters and back to calmer seas.  Phew!  'Cheated Death Once Again' as my old friend Steve Howell is fond of saying on pelagic trips.  Definitely an experience ... but let's not do that again please.

So back at the dock and safely home an hour later.  While the trips can be a bit of a slog, the distances long, and the birding time short, you do get to see really good species.  Every time I get off the boat I think that I won't do another for a while.  Then the email goes out announcing a new trip, and I inevitably sign up ready for a new adventure ... who knows what we might see out there next time.

Madeira ... the quest for Zino's Petrel

Random trip to Portugal and my first Life Birds in quite a while ....

So sometimes you have to do something spontaneous.  My plan for last week was just to chill in East Hampton but, after a mellow weekend I got yanked back to the City for meetings on Monday and Tuesday and rather than head back out for July 4th, I decided I wanted to go somewhere different.  After sifting through the available choices on Monday, I hit the phones and the internet and booked tickets to Madeira hoping to pick up some life birds and in particular ... a Zino's Petrel.

I had the flights and the hotel but no firm birding plans so I stalked the folks at Madeira Windbirds hoping to charter a boat for a pelagic trip and figuring I could also add some endemic land birds over the weekend.  After a few false starts Catarina Fagundes from Windbirds called me back and said they could shuffle their schedule, get me out on a boat (if they could get their hands on 60lbs of fresh chum) and also offered a couple of land bird excursions where I could could join scheduled trips and see all the good species and sub-species on the island.  It sounded good so I wired some money for boats and chum, cancelled the rental car I'd booked and jumped on a plane on Tuesday night.

Settling into the somewhat over-formal Reid's Palace Hotel in Funchal - Churchill hung out there apparently and it looks like they're still dressing for dinner as though they're expecting him to show up at any moment - I took some quiet time before the birding started the next day.  After recovering from my jet-lag on Thursday morning, I joined Catarina and her partner Hugo Romano to get started on the birding on Thursday afternoon, local and endemic land birds were promised, and I was excited to see something new.

'Madeiran' Chaffinch (Fringilla coelebs maderensis) the local, and blue-ish race of
Common Chaffinch (and not yet split).

'Madeiran Firecrest' (Regulus madeirensis) - almost every authority or listing guru
splits this as a good species (outside the US).  When I asked my local hosts as to
why the AOU hasn't split this yet (?) their response was that 'Americans are a bit slow'.

So land birds on an island are somewhat limited and Madeira is no exception with just a handful of species, but most of which have evolved into distinct sub-species (and perhaps ultimately species). First stop was the Santa António da Serra area where we quickly got 'Madeiran' Chaffinch, 'Madeiran' Firecrest and the local sub-species of European Robin among other things.  Then after a quick stop for Spanish Sparrow and the local sub-species of Gray Wagtail in Caniçal, we headed over to Ponta de São Lorenço in search of more open country birds.

European Robin (Erithacus rubecula microrhinchos) - not sure this is a good sub-species? 

Spanish Sparrow - apparently introduced and declining but we saw quite a few birds at a small colony.  
They apparently nest in the native palms which are being decimated by a weevil introduced in non-native plantings imported from Egypt.  Same story the world over ...

Berthelot's Pipit - a regional endemic which occurs on Madeira and on the Canary
Islands.

The grassland community had some interesting birds including a trio of species - Berthelot's Pipit, Plain Swift and Island Canary - which are all endemic to the Atlantic Islands (Madeira, the Canary Islands, etc.).  We also spent some time looking for, and finally found, some Rock Sparrows (Rock Petronia) and saw several of the local race of Eurasian Kestrel (Falco tinnunculus canariensis).  Everything here seems to be diverging in some way.

Bulwer's Petrel - first on the chum and with us for the whole trip. 

White-faced Storm-Petrel - perhaps my favorite pelagic species.

Friday afternoon was Pelagic time! You can see more details on the type of trip that Windbirds offers at Winbirds website along with more pictures, etc. We were heading out in the afternoon hoping to intercept Zino's Petrels as they returned to the island in the evening after feeding offshore all day.  The sea at  Ponta de São Lorenço was deceptively flat but as we cleared 'the channel' and headed out to the North side of the island the waves picked up and we pushed our way out 15 miles through quite choppy seas to an area Catarina knew well before deploying chum and settling in for three long drifts in our chum slick (perhaps 5 hours in the slick - and I didn't throw up, even once!).

The trip out might have been choppy but it was also very birdy.  We passed two large feeding groups of Cory's Shearwaters numbering several hundred birds, the first feeding over a group of Bryde's Whales (pronounced Broo-dah's) and Short-beaked Common Dolphins, the second feeding over a Sei Whale and a group of young Atlantic Spotted Dolphins.  In the mix we also had some Manx Shearwaters and a single FEA'S PETREL (as much as a I wanted a Zino's this bird had a hulking great bill and flew like a Fea's - probably the locally breeding 'desertas' race who's island home was visible in the distance).

Once out in the chum slick we spent the time waiting, waiting, waiting with nothing but BULWER"S PETRELS for company.  We always had a couple in the slick but nothing else came to join them until around 8pm when the sun started to get lower and suddenly Storm-Petrels appeared.  First up was a WHITE-FACED STORM-PETREL which danced it's way up and down the slick for an hour or so, then a visit from a MADEIRAN PETREL (nice to get Band-rumped Storm-Petrel at a breeding island) and then a late EUROPEAN STORM-PETREL.  Not a bad haul of chum birds, but even though we stayed out so late that we ended up coming back to land in complete darkness, we did not luck out with a Zino's ....

Saturday was a full day looking for land birds.  TROCAZ PIGEON was a life bird for me, the first one in over a year.  I'd expected to have to go to the Laurel forest for them but we went first to a cliff site where we could scope them high on scrubby trees on a relatively sparsely forested slope (although we did see on later at the Laurel Forest site).  An interesting single-island endemic, with perhaps 2,700 birds left on the island (and in the world).

Interestingly it seems that it's ancestor was the Common Wood-Pigeon and that that species apparently arrived and evolved separately on the island on two separate occasions.  The first invasion produced the Trocaz Pigeon, while the second (presumably later) invasion evolved into a distinct sub-species of Wood-Pigeon (Columba palumbus maderensis) which went extinct in the early part of the 20th century.  Who knows, maybe Wood-Pigeon will colonize again (there have been some recent records) and start a third species? Island endemics, and Island Biogeography are endlessly fascinating .... 

The Laurel Forest habitat was actually pretty cool - green and semi-tropical on an island that up until now had looked pretty arid and brown.  In addition to the laurels there were several species of 'heather' some chest high, some basically small trees.  There were also some unique looking plants like 'Pride of Madeira' (left) which is apparently common as a transplant in California and is actually a great hummingbird plant there.  One local tour company famously even used a photo of this species, complete with feeding hummingbirds, on their local tour brochure.  Who knows, perhaps next time I come I'll bring a box of Black-chinned Hummingbirds, I'm sure they'd do well here (kidding).

There is also apparently and endemic dragonfly, no doubt some endemic butterflies, etc. and for a while I was wishing I had more time to explore the non-vertebrates on the island.  I did see a lot of the endemic Madeiran Wall-Lizard (Lacerta dugesii) though so at least I got one new non-bird for the Life List.

The afternoon saw us birding at Ponta do Pargo, again a grassland area where we added Pallid Swift, Red-legged Partridge, several calling Common Quail and the local sub-species of Spectacled Warbler (orbitalis) and Common Buzzard (harterti).  Then after a quick stop for Common Waxbills it was time to go back to the hotel for dinner and a nap before round two with the Zino's Petrels - if the Zino's wouldn't come to me, then I'd have to go to the Zino's ....

Back in the van at 9:30pm for a drive to the Pico do Arieiro - jagged mountain tops 6,000 feet above sea level and well above cloud level that night.  Once we cleared the clouds we were presented with a truly awesome sight, ragged mountain peaks floating above the island under a sea of stars and bathed in silver moonlight.  Truly quite an awesome place to go look for birds.  Hugo and Catarina offer the Windbirds Night Trip for Zino's Petrel during the breeding season and, as it was my best and only chance to actually see one, we were soon hiking off along steep moonlit trails along the mountain tops to one of the few known breeding colonies of this rare seabird.

By 11pm we were set up on a razorback ridge line with steep cliffs descending vertically into the clouds on either side of a narrow trail.  Sitting quietly we'd been told that the birds would come in to exchange incubation duties at nest burrows on the cliffs below us and that we might hear and see some.  Sure enough, not long afterwards we heard a 'whooshing' sound as a bird passed over us in the darkness (the breeders apparently go silently to the nest burrows) followed by the eery calls of several Zino's flying around us (non-breeders visit the colony at night and make lots of noise).  Putting the moon to our backs we were able to see the birds, firstly ghost-like silhouettes, but when they came close and caught the moon light, we could actually see what they were.  Perhaps  half a dozen or more birds kiting around, sometimes in close formation, skimming the cliff edges and blasting by within feet of us as we stood still on the trail.  In minutes, Zino's Petrel went from 'most wanted lifer' to 'heard only' to 'not-quite tick-able views' on the hierarchy of 'not quite on the life list'.  Notwithstanding the rules of World Listing though, it was an awesome experience to be there in such an mid blowing place with this incredibly enigmatic species wheeling and wailing around us.

As luck would have it though, we weren't done yet.  It turns out that we weren't alone on the mountain that night and as we came back up towards the parking lot (several hundred steep steps that were a bit easier going down earlier) we bumped into some researchers who were trying to band and radio-tag petrels.  We'd left them alone earlier but, as they were packing up for the night, we went over to talk, and just as they were taking their nets down, a petrel flew into the mist net (!).  Once they'd processed the bird, they were kind enough to let us see one in the hand - truly an honor - sometimes life just works out perfectly.  And yes, based on what I'd seen so far that night, and seeing this bird go into the net, I did add ZINO'S PETREL to my life list.  One of the best natural history experiences I've had in years.

Back at the hotel - and watching a Barn Owl hunting around the hotel grounds at 2:30am - I had a chance to reflect on the trip.  Very glad I came, a truly wonderful break and great experience - even if they do speak Brazilian poorly here.  Hugo and Catarina are real pros and highly recommended.  Definitely a weekend trip to consider if you find yourself in range of Madeira (it's only 12 hours from New York!). 

NYS 2012 Big Year Summary (Part 2)

APRIL
And the Spring migration that I've been waiting for finally gets underway.  This isn't a time for rarities so much, but rather a 'mopping up' operation.  Over the next six weeks I can get most of New York's migrant breeding birds without going too far from home, but each one that I miss requires a trip to look for them in their breeding habitat.  Too many misses and I'll be running around like crazy chasing breeding birds through June instead of focussing on the rare ones.  So through April and May I find myself doing a lot of migrant watching.

I end up getting 56 year-birds in April almost all from New York City parks and the State Parks on the South Shore of Long Island.  Barn Swallow is my 200th species of the year on April 6th and other 'good birds' include a Yellow-throated Warbler at Riverside Park, a Prothonatory Warbler in Bryant Park, several Kentucky Warblers in Central Park and a Golden-winged Warbler in Crocheron Park in Queens.  That bird turns out to be my last add of the month but things are looking pretty good as I head into May with few misses to worry about so far.

Golden-winged Warbler in Queens.  Photo - Corey Finger (used with permission).

Misses are an odd thing to think about as almost anything that I'd missed up until now could feasibly be found later in the year in the 'second winter'.  Come April though a new class of 'permanent' misses appear with Spring overshoot migrants that might not show again and aren't going to give me a second chance.  Fortunately there aren't too many of these this April; a Bullock's Oriole upstate is a one day bird and not chaseable while being lucky enough to see one of the Swallow-tailed Kites that showed up in just that ... luck.  Those two were the worst of my April misses so I actually considered myself to have done pretty well.

MAY
Is my absolute favorite month of the year in Eastern North America (and large chunks of the Palearctic too for that matter).  Migration is at full force and life seems to be flooding back to every habitat in our area.  It's a month that I could happily be outdoors in Nature every single day, and this year I think I might just well have been.

May started with a good vagrant bird for my 250th bird of the year - a breeding plumage male Yellow-headed Blackbird which had set up territory near Binghamton.  It also included my 300th bird when I managed to levy my local network Out East to track down a calling Northern Bobwhite on the North Fork of Long Island.  In total I added 57 new year birds in May, ending up at 306 and feeling really positive about breaking the record.

On the record front, by now I was pretty much openly acknowledging that I planned to try to break the New York State big year record and had even given an interview to Corey Finger at 10,000 Birds that said as much.  Things seemed to be going well and once again I missed very few birds - a Swainson's Hawk and a possible Swainson's Warbler being the most notable misses.  It was also a lot of fun racking up such big numbers of year birds day-after-day.  You get  a lot of endorphins from checking things off a list.

The almost mythical Henslow's Sparrow - crappy shot, great bird.

Other May highlights included a lot of time out at night on Long Island failing to find Black Rails but hearing lots of Eastern Whip-poor-wills and successfully tracking down one of New York State's few breeding Chuck-wills-widows.  I also chased down Upland Sandpipers at Blue Chips Farm, Bicknell's Thrush at Whiteface Mountain,  Henslow's Sparrow at Perch River, and Arctic Tern at Cupsogue Flats. On the vagrant front I finally caught up with a White-faced Ibis at Jamaica Bay after many, many hours of searching, only to have Shai Mitra then find another one about 400 yards from my house in Northwest Harbor (!).  I also got Mississippi Kites, a bird I was fretting about bumping into, when a pair showed up and started to build a nest at Sterling Forest.

Coming out of May I was in pretty good shape with a very defined list of breeding birds still to hunt down and a fair amount of time to do it before shorebird season kicked off in July.

JUNE
Involved a lot of miles as I slogged back and for across the North Country trying to track down those scarce, or even semi-mythical, breeders that are often the envy of many a New York Birder.

Spruce Grouse (a small and declining relict population hang on in the Adirondacks) became something of an obsession and 'Hunting the Snark' as I came to call it took me to these mountain bogs, and fed a lot of mosquitos, three times this month.  I had good intel from local birders and research scientists, including the location of a breeding pair, but it still took me six long days of searching before I finally bumped into a mother and young at Spring Pond Bog.

The Snark!  Or Spruce Grouse.  A lot of hours went into this bird.

Other long-haul trips netted me breeding King Rail in Western New York and Northern Goshawk near Potsdam, but I failed miserably in my attempt to track down a Gray Partridge that Chris Wood had seen in Amish Country near Perch River.  Shorebirds also started a bit early with a Curlew Sandpiper at Pike's Beach and a Ruff at Montezuma.  I felt really good about this last bird having raced up there as soon as I heard about it and got the bird late in the day.  Sure, it was a 14-hour round trip but surely this would be the only Ruff seen in New York this year .... and then Andrew Baksh found 4 or 5 this Summer at Jamaica Bay (details of several Ruffs here at Birding Dude - Andrew Baksh's most excellent blog).

Curlew Sandpiper at Pike's Beach.  This was my first digi-phone shot and I was quite encouraged
but I haven't been able to get much in terms of results since.

Perhaps the best bird of the month though, and certainly the best bird that I found myself this year, was a total and complete surprise.  I'd been debating how to get offshore to look for Pelagic Birds.  Richard Fried in his record breaking year, had been taken offshore several times by Angus Wilson and John Shemilt and had managed several really good birds.  I was pretty sure this was not going to happen for me when I finally worked out who John Shemilt was and realized the he was the guy I yelled at for driving his truck all over the shorebird flats at Mecox.  So I was pretty much on my own.  While June was early for seabirds, in past years I had seen a lot of jaegers and shearwaters South of Montauk while fly-fishing for Mako Sharks (all catch-and-release).  So, chartering a shark-boat and captain, I headed off and spent a day chumming in and around the shark fleet about 30-miles South of Eastern Long Island.  And we had quite simply the most amazing day of sea-birding that I've ever had in New York waters.

Cory's Shearwater looking very imposing and close to the boat.

To cut a long story short we had all three Jaeger Species and hundreds of shearwaters often up close to the boat.  By the time we had to head back to Montauk I couldn't imagine a better day of birding and then .... a Fea's Petrel flew close by the boat!  Luckily the captain was able to pursue the petrel and I was able to get some shots because no-one would have believed me had I not got photos.  A first record for New York State and a truly awesome bird.  With Fea's Petrel, Spruce Grouse and Curlew Sandpiper in New York in the same week this truly was a 'purple patch' and perhaps the highlight of the year.  The Summer, and almost all the sea-birding I did after that were certainly a bit of an anticlimax.

The Fea's Petrel, a first for New York State.

Fea's Petrel off Montauk, NY

The second half of our Pelagic on the 19th produced a real star bird; a FEA's PETREL, which if accepted by NYSARC will be a first for New York State.  We stopped to check out an area of 62-degree water about 8-miles SE of Montauk and soon noticed some small Bluefin Tuna chasing bait on the surface.  While we were watching, a smaller gray sea-bird slipped between the Great Shearwaters at our stern, and I turned to see a well-marked gray pterodroma, with dark underwings and a strong dark "M" pattern above.  Panic ensued as we got the boat turned and headed off in pursuit at speed enabling a few shaky photos, but enough to confirm the ID.

For Fea's Petrel, key marks included the dark underwings, plain gray tail, black "M" mark, black bandit mask, and the lack of a white rump or cap/collar.  The only debate left is potential Zino's Petrel, and that hinges on the "build" of the bird and, more importantly, the size and depth of the bill.  Looking at photos of Zino's and Fea's, this bird looks like Fea's, albeit at the small-billed end of the spectrum.

Discussed the ID with Angus Wilson, Ned Brinkley, and Steve Howell and submitted it to the New York State Avian Records Committee (NYSARC) as a Fea's Petrel.  Currently awaiting their decision.

Not a bad start to the Summer pelagic season.  It certainly got people excited to get out there and look - you just never know what's out there.