See Life Paulagics ran a pelagic trip out of Lewes, DE on Saturday, April 3.
This trip was specifically scheduled to intercept the northbound mackerel
schools, in hopes of Great Skua.  We didn't get a skua, but the trip was a
success.

We managed to get out after a week of very nasty weather.  The bad weather
limited the number of commercial fishing boats that were out and working.  The
one working boat we found held lots of birds including gulls, hundreds of
Gannets, Fulmars, and some early Sooty Shearwaters.  We found schools of
Mackerel, and plenty of birds were associated with them.  We had an excellent
Razorbill show, with an inordinate number of them flying in to check out the
boat, giving everybody great views.  We also managed to ID 2 Common Murres with
the Razorbills, but they were not particularly cooperative.

In a case of one that got away, we had two shearwaters that did not come into
the boat.  One was an obvious Sooty, but the other appeared smaller and was
pale underneath.  Chances are that the bird was a Manx Shearwater, but we
couldn't get it close enough to positively ID it.

We had several nice looks at Fin Whales, and we relocated several small groups
of Atlantic White-sided Dolphin that we had seen off of Cape May in mid-March.
There are several great pics of them dolphins from the Cape May trip now up in
the Photo Gallery.

The results were:

      13 Common Loon
      12 Red-throated Loon
       7 Northern Fulmar
       9 Sooty Shearwater
       1 shearwater sp.
    1240 Northern Gannet
       2 Red Phalarope
      69 Bonaparte's Gull
     700 Herring Gull
       1 Iceland Gull
      70 Great Black-backed Gull
       2 Common Murre
      91 Razorbill
       8 alcid sp.

       4 Fin Whale
      30 Atlantic White-sided Dolphin


Our next trip is June 5 out of Lewes, DE.  This is a good time of year for
Greater and Sooty Shearwaters, Wilson's Storm-Petrel, jaegers, etc.  Less
common birds that have been seen at this time of year include South Polar Skua,
Arctic Tern, and Leach's Storm-Petrel.  We hope you can join us.

-PAG

Paul A. Guris
See Life Paulagics
P.O. Box 161
Green Lane, PA  18054
www.paulagics.com
215-234-6805


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