[Maine-birds] Maine Audubon Pelagic, 9/17

Hi everyone:

Maine Audubon's annual fall pelagic trip out of Bar Harbor ran last Saturday with beautiful weather and calm seas. We motored south of Bar Harbor to the Ballpark before heading east to Grand Manan Banks then returned via Machias Seal Island. Our target bird, Great Skua, showed off for the fourth year in a row, again in good numbers. We had 9 encounters with skuas with all but 2 clearly Great Skuas - the others others flew past too quickly to be sure of their ID. We'll need analyze photos of the individuals to see if there were any duplicates counted. Another highlight for this trip was a Cory's Shearwater, a species that has been increasingly common in the Gulf of Maine but only the second time that we have seen it on this trip. Otherwise it was nice to see both phalaropes, a couple Northern Fulmar, 5+ Lesser Black-backed Gulls, and great comparisons of storm-petrels thanks to the high numbers of Leach's that we encountered.

This was also one of the best cetacean shows we've had recently with Minke, Fin, Humpback, and Right Whales, plus one of the most impressive pods of Atlantic White-sided Dolphins I've ever seen.

Many thanks to Jan Pierson, Peter Vickery, and Zack Klyver for narrating the trip, to all the guides who helped spot and get others on birds, the captain and crew on the Friendship V, and especially to all the participants for making this trip run!

Below is a complete list of species we saw (with rough totals). Anyone eBird users from the trip can add the segmented checklists to their accounts by using the links at: http://maineaudubon.org/events/bar-harbor-pelagic-trip-2016/

Mallard - 1
Common Eider - 210
White-winged Scoter - 1
Black Scoter - 1
Common Loon - 2
Northern Fulmar - 2
Cory's Shearwater - 1
Great Shearwater - 446
Sooty Shearwater - 5
Wilson's Storm-Petrel - 81
Leach's Storm-Petrel - 83
Northern Gannet - 79
Great Cormorant - 1
Double-crested Cormorant - 55
Red-necked Phalarope - 19
Red Phalarope - 44
phalarope sp. - 7
GREAT SKUA - 7
skua sp. - 2
Pomarine Jaeger - 14
Common Murre - 4
Razorbill - 6
Black Guillemot - 1
Atlantic Puffin - 8
Laughing Gull - 4
Ring-billed Gull - 3
Herring Gull - 372
Lesser Black-backed Gull - 5
Great Black-backed Gull - 1,020
Common Tern - 1
Merlin - 1

Thanks and good birding,


Doug Hitchcox
Staff Naturalist
Maine Audubon
207-781-2330 x237
dhitchcox@maineaudubon.org

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