On Monday, the 17th, I took an all-day pelagic out of Rye, NH, run by NH Audubon. I was hoping to connect with a Sabine's gull, but no luck there. It was a glorious day, though. Plenty of birds, and the whales we bumped into were the best thing about this trip to Jeffrey's Ledge. Shearwaters included a couple Manx, half a dozen Cory's, and a plethora of great. A couple Wilson's storm-petrels were present as well as a few great cormorants, two peregines and a merlin, some migrating ducks and geese, and a ton of gannets.
The mammals put on quite a show, including several encounters with small groups of humpbacks, 4 fin whales, a minke, a distant right whale we could never get close to, and a sperm whale we did get close enough to for photos after waiting through two long dives. Harbor porpoise were also seen and a pod of white-sided dolphins kept us amused and amazed by their antics around the boat for several minutes.
See here for some photos of both whales and birds: http://www.flickr.com/groups/1595320@N25/discuss/72157631574522187/.
Among the gulls there appeared several juvenile lesser black-backs. These are easy to ID when one can see the whole wing from the top. As the day wore on, I took some photos of what I thought were lesser black-backs, but when looking at the photos I wasn't so sure about all of them. Some turned out to be herring gulls that were molting or possessed of a pale plumage. I put together five of these in Zenfolio for comment by anyone wishing to look them over:
http://bbartrug.zenfolio.com/p728492311/h43a27dc0#h43a27dc0.
The first is almost certainly a lesser b-back. The second and third image are of one bird, and it certainly appears to be the species in question, but the bill looks too heavy -- a greater with a dark wing, or herring with a pale tail base?? Number 4 seems to be a herring -- the window at the base of the primaries -- but it has a dark underwing linings and a whiter tail. Number 5 is similar -- is the bill that of a greater b-back?
Thanks for your time if you take a look. I should have taken longer sequences of each bird, but I had already taken close to 300 frames and was running out of card space -- I'd left my spare card in my trunk.
Cheers,
bab
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Bruce Bartrug
Nobleboro, Maine, USA
bbartrug@gmail.com
www.brucebartrug.com
The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing. - Albert Einstein
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