Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 21:14:14 EDT Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Marshall Iliff Subject: Maryland Pelagic Trip results - 20 Aug 2001 Comments: cc: Live4birds@aol.com, Georgearmistead@aol.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Birders, On 20 Aug 2001 Mary Gustafson ran a pelagic trip out of Lewes, DE, which visited both MD and DE waters. The boat only holds a small number of people so the trip was no widely advertised. The results were a bit disappointing, as the numbers and variety of birds were both low. Seas 2-4 ft and numerous people were sick, making for a difficult trip. Skies were overcast in morning, hazy but suny in afternoon. Temperatures were cool in the 70s. Wind a beaufort 2-3. We departed the dock at 3:00 a.m., were well offhsore by dawn at 6:00 a.m., but had to head back in at 11:00 a.m. Birding was done entirely within the 30-fathom line, though we almost reached the 30 fathom line in MD waters. The 19 fathom seamount was the only area visited of topographic interest, though we grazed the north end of The Teacup. Trip totals are given as Delaware/Maryland: Cory's Shearwater - 41/14 Audubon's Shearwater - 0/1 Wilson's Storm-Petrel - 138/51 Least Sandpiper - 2/0 Red-necked Phalarope - 0/3 Laughing Gull - 13/0 Common Tern - 8/2 "Commic" Tern - 1/0 Purple Martin - 3/0 Loggerhead Sea Turtle - 1/0 Monarch - 0/1 No other dolphins, fish, or birds were seen. One Sandwich Tern was on Cape Henlopen as we returned to the dock. An hour by hour breakdown was kept, including stats for each half hour. Water temps are given in Farenheit. Water depth in feet; Lat/Longs given are for the bottom of each half hour. Codes: COSH = Cory's Shearwater WISP = Wilson's Storm-Petrel 6:00-6:30 a.m. (74-74.5 F; 38 25.183' N, 74 24.190'W) 1 "Commic" Terns 3 COSH 7 WISP 6:30-7:00 a.m. (76 F, 154 ft, 38 32.1'N, 74 18.7'W) 1 Least Sandpiper 4 WISP 7:00-7:30 a.m. (38 29.8'N, 74 17.7'W) arrive 19 fathom seamount @ 7:20, chum slick laid and we drifted north w/ current for next 30 minutes. Boat drifted c. 1 mi in 1/2 hour, slick drifted c. 1/4 mi in same period. 8 COSH 4 WISP 1 Least Sandpiper 7:30-8:00 a.m. (about same postion) 47 WISP 1 juv. Purple Martin 8:00-8:30 a.m. (38 29.00'N, 74 18.8'W) 9 WISP 5 COSH 8:30-9:00 a.m. (76.8 F; 132 ft; 38 27.04'N, 74 18.00'W) 19 COSH 1 WISP 9:00-9:30 a.m. Crossed MD line at about 9:04 a.m. 2 WISP 9:30-10:00 a.m. (77.5 F; 155 ft; 38 25.71'N, 74 12.24'W) Spent about 1.5 hours in vicinity of a trawler (9:20 a.m. on), which had a few birds around it. A strong chum slick was laid which attracted WISP. 30 WISP 7 COSH 1 Audubon's Shearwater (seen by only a few, not including myself) 3 Red-necked Phalaropes 10:00-10:30 a.m. (same position) 2 ad. Common Terns 2 COSH 10:30-11:00 a.m. (same position) Started in at 10:50 a.m. 5 COSH 21 WISP (40 WISP on slick at our departure were total of the birds seen over last 1.5 hours) 11:00-11:30 a.m. (77 F; 140 ft; 38 26.43'N, 74 13.5'W) Crossed back to DE at about 11:15 a.m. 5 WISP 6 COSH I kept poorer notes from then on in, but did take note of: 11:53 - 1 juv. LAGU 12:15 - 2 WISP 12:20-12:40 - 15 WISP seen in concentration at 38 35.06'N, 74 28.82'W; chummed for 20 minutes and attracted constant stream of WISP coming from downwind in a well-defined line. Within 20 minutes at least 60 WISP had arrived along with 2 juv. LAGU. Water temp 75.9 F Other sightings on return trip: 2 Purple Martins at about 2:00 p.m. 8 Common Terns at about 1:30 p.m. 10 Laughing Gulls at about 1:30 p.m. Best, Marshall Iliff *********************** Marshall Iliff miliff@aol.com Annapolis, MD ************************ ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================