I think I saw Great Skua from The Nova Star Ferry on Monday. It was an all brown bird with white on the wing tips. I can't think of anything it could be other than a Skua and I assume Polar Skuas are pretty uncommon in the Gulf of Maine?
There was a steady stream of Shearwaters all day. Sally and I, along with another birder who was similarly inexperienced with sea birds, were sure they were mostly Cory Shearwaters. I was surprised when I entered my list in e-bird, the Cory was not listed as likely. Maybe they were mostly Greater? The outer part of the wings were darker than the inner parts when looking down on them.
Any tips would b appreciated. It was fun studying sea birds for hours on end, even if we wee not certain what we were seeing.
Bill Blauvelt
Portland, ME
On Sun, Sep 13, 2015 at 10:06 PM, Doug Hitchcox <dhitchcox@mac.com> wrote:
Hey everyone:
Maine Audubon's 20th Annual "Fall Pelagic" out of Bar Harbor was held yesterday and it was GREAT! Below is a list of a few of the highlights but take note of the 9 GREAT SKUAS that were seen. Some of these were seen multiple times but thanks to all cameras on board we were able to discern at least 9 distinct individuals from the trip. eBird has some impressive counts from trips off Newfoundland and a remarkable Massachusetts seawatch during the "1991 Perfect Storm" but I can't imagine there are many other cases of single trips seeing this many Great Skuas in North America.
The Pomarine Jaeger show was also amazing with young and old, light and dark, you name it, in abundance. Some of the phalarope flocks were also quite impressive compared to past years; dominated by Red-necked Phalaropes. Lesser Black-backed Gulls have also become common on this trip in the last few years but a young Black-legged Kittiwake took the title of "snazziest" for the day: https://www.flickr.com/photos/lrbevier/21375184172/
I know lots of people took some great photos out there so I wanted to recommend people share them on the 'Maine bird list' flickr group so we can all see: https://www.flickr.com/groups/mainebirdlist/
***We'll have 'official' eBird checklists finished soon so please be patient and those will be shared with everyone on the trip***
Go ahead and mark your calendars for next year's trip. Mid September has treated us well.
Avian highlights:
3 Northern Fulmar
671 Great Shearwater
11 Sooty Shearwater
2 Manx Shearwater
240+ Wilson's Storm-Petrel
8 Leach's Storm-Petrel
206 Northern Gannet
338 Red-necked Phalarope
2+ Red Phalarope
9 Great Skua
1 skua sp.
30+ Pomarine Jaeger
2 Razorbill
3 Black Guillemot
16 Atlantic Puffin
1 Black-legged Kittiwake
5 Lesser Black-backed Gull
507 Great Black-backed Gull
1 Common Tern
Good birding,
Doug Hitchcox
Staff Naturalist
Maine Audubon
207-781-2330 x237
dhitchcox@maineaudubon.org
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