Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2003 09:11:31 -0400 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Armas Hill Subject: Upcoming & recent DE/MD pelagic birding trips Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Dear MD Birders: Re: Upcoming Pelagic Birding Trip from Lewes, DE & What was seen out of Lewes on May 31 We're looking forward to some especially good seabirding during the remainder of 2003 on a FONT pelagic birding trip from Lewes, Delaware. The all-day pelagic birding trip will be on the "Skipjack", to waters offshore from Delaware and Maryland (to the Wilmington & Baltimore Canyons) on: Saturday, August 30. Departure will be at 4am, to be offshore at a prime-time in the morning, and return will be by 4pm. In recent years, birds that have been seen in late August during FONT pelagic trips from Lewes have included: Cory's Shearwater, Greater Shearwater, Audubon's Shearwater, Wilson's Storm-Petrel, Pomarine Jaeger, Long-tailed Jaeger, South Polar Skua, Black Tern, and Bridled Tern. The price for the trip from Lewes is $110 per person. Space is limited to 20 participants per trip. For reservations, please contact FONT (Focus On Nature Tours) to reserve your place, by e-mail to: font@focusonnature.com or by fax at 302-529-1085, or by phone either at 302-529-1876 or toll-free at: 1-800-721-9986. Further information is in the FONT web-site at: www.focusonnature.com Also in the web-site, there are excerpts from an interesting article in the most-recent DOS (Delmarva Ornithological Society) publication regarding pelagic bird sightings in offshore Delaware and Maryland waters. You might check it out. (You'll find it in the link "Pelagic Bulletins" on the left side of the home page: www.focusonnature.com ) Including our latest pelagic trip from Lewes (on May 31, 2003 - see below), South Polar Skuas have been seen on 4 consecutive trips Good birding, Armas Hill Now, from Andy Ednie (leader on our recent May 31, 2003 pelagic trip from Lewes DE), here's a report: It was a very good trip that day, out of Lewes. That it went at all was good fortune as weather reports had called for strong winds, probable thunderstorms, and even possible tornados, not the best pelagic conditions. We arrived at the dock at 3:45am to dead calm. I asked the captain if we were going. His response "Why not?" And the front line of bad weather did hold off until the day's end, after we returned to the dock, just as the captain had said it would. As we went out, in the morning, we did not see a shearwater until 8:00am, but from then we saw MANY. (We would see over 650 Sooty Shearwaters and over 100 Greater Shearwaters during the trip.) Nearly all the birds were concentrated around the scallop boats at the 30 fathom line. There was very little baitfish in the water. The water temperature was still quite cold at 55 degrees F. (This trip has never had a temperature less than 63 degrees.) The best birds were a near-adult Pomarine Jaeger that passed over the boat about 8 feet above us, and a dark-morph South Polar Skua. The latter bird did a great disappearing act. One of our participants, Joe Swertinski, spotted the bird off the last trawler of the day. Then, as we tried to get others on the bird, it just disappeared. Luckily, Chris the mate, thought he saw where the bird landed. He then put us to within 25 feet of it. Nice!!!! Here are the totals of the birds seen, noting numbers in DE/MD waters: Common Loon 19/5 (24) Northern Gannet 7/10 (17) Greater Shearwater 21/92 (113) Sooty Shearwater 103/560 (663) Wilson's Storm-Petrel 45/82 (127) Pomarine Jaeger 0/1 (1) South Polar Skua 0/1 (1) Laughing Gull 1/4 (5) Herring Gull 8/28 (36) Ring-billed Gull 1/0 (1) Great Black-backed Gull 11/14 (25) Moa Moa (Oceanic Sunfish) 3/3 (6) Sea Turtle 1/0 (1) Offshore Bottlenose Dolphin 30/0 (30) Our thanks to the captain and mate for a fine job, and particularly to all of the trip participants for joining us. *************************************************** Armas Hill Focus On Nature Tours, Inc. Wilmington, DE USA e-mail: armas@focusonnature.com ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================