Several of us went fishing on an 18 hour trip for sea bass aboard the
Atlantic Star out of Wildwood Crest, NJ.  The boat left at 2 AM and headed
south, placing us in Maryland waters for most of the daylight hours though
we believe we were north of MD at sunrise.  (Position is difficult to
determine on these trips as the wreck sites are closely held secrets and
bringing a personal GPS aboard is STRICTLY forbidden.)  Fishing was
excellent but between catching fish and while the boat made a few moves
between wrecks, we managed to have some really great pelagic birding.

Pre-sunrise we were accompanied by a half dozen COMMON DOLPHINS and started
picking up our first DOVEKIES.  After we anchored and started fishing, we
noticed a big movement of Dovekies.  I counted 200 birds in 3 minutes.
This later died down but we were still picking up Dovekies on and off
throughout the day until sunset.  Since we were not paying continual
attention our count is low, but we ended the day with 1,360 Dovekies.  Not
bad for only paying attention for a few hours.

Another nice count was 9 ATLANTIC PUFFINS.  We had seen two when moving
between wrecks, but when we moved again with a following sea for 20 miles
or so, we were able to pick them up more easily.  We also managed to find
10 RAZORBILLS, a species we usually do a little better with inshore.

Other pelagic highlights included a single MANX SHEARWATER, 4 NORTHERN
FULMAR, some BLACK-LEGGED KITTIWAKES (all adults), GANNETS (almost all
adults), and 2 COMMON LOONS in over 300' of water.

We had one really bizarre experience.  Mike Fritz landed a nice sea bass
which spit up a few things it had eaten.  This isn't unusual and the first
one was a crab.  The second one was an odd looking lump of something, and
when I pulled it out of the cooler to see what it was I realized that it
was a Dovekie's skull and neck!  Dovekies don't normally dive all that deep
so I suspect that it had died, sunk to the bottom, and was consumed by the
fish.


The water is still very warm for this time of year offshore (well over 50
degrees) and it seems to be holding more birds than usual.  We still have
room on our pelagic trips from NY, NJ, and DE.  I will be posting details
out later or you can look up the details on our web site.


-PAG

-- 
*Paul A. Guris
See Life Paulagics
PO Box 161
Green Lane, PA  18054
215-234-6805

*

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