Date: Sun, 17 Aug 2003 01:56:37 -0400 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Phil Davis Subject: VA Beach Peleagic - 8/16: White-faced Storm Petrel !!! Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Ospreyers: I didn't see any messages yet with results from the Lewes trip ... On a hunch, I decided to take the VA Beach pelagic on Saturday (8/16) in pursuit of the illusive White-faced Storm Petrel. My whim paid off ... we had very few species on the trip ... but ... Unofficial results (typically Brian Patteson will post the official results on the Pelagics listserver) ... 8/16/2003 - Bluewater Bullet out of Rudee Inlet, VA Beach Time: 0515 - 1815 ~500 Wilson's Storm Petrel 13 Cory's Shearwaters 1 Audubon's Shearwater 4 Red-necked Phaloropes 1 (pelagic) Pied-billed Grebe 1 WHITE-FACED STORM PETREL We had a nice slick going with lots of Wilson's but nothing else ... after quite a while of hoping to pull in a White-faced, or something else good, we started off and about five minutes later ran into the White-faced. Our captain shadowed it for about 2-3 minutes, everyone got a good look. Interesting flight style ... it bounces off the water once with it's long legs, then glides into the wind for about 3-4 seconds, then repeats the process ... over and over. Someone asked, "Did it cross the Atlantic like that?" After a while, it made a 90 degree change of course and we lost it. I think we were about 70 miles out, beyond Richmond Canyon. Water temperature was pretty cold ... probably only about 72-74 degrees at the time. (Brian will set the record straight). Lots of Green Darners, too ... ... and now for the mandatory MD connection ... on the way down, I stopped at Deal Island ... high water level ... only birds of note were about 10 Greater Yellowlegs. How did you all do out of Lewes? Phil ================================== Phil Davis Davidsonville, Maryland USA mailto:PDavis@ix.netcom.com ================================== ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================