[Maine-birds] Birds (GREAT SKUA) up to and down from Grand Manan 9/2 and 9/4/18

Hi all, 

As a last hooray for the summer and returning students, COA had a trip up to Grand Manan earlier this week. I was lucky enough to travel on Osprey, College of the Atlantic's research vessel both up to and down from Grand Manan. Luckily, the captain Toby Stephenson is also interested in pelagics and does a great job shouting out to me when there was a skua or jaeger coming our way. 

The ride up was spectacular, with great pelagics most of the trip. My main target, which came quite easily, was Great Skua. While being on Mt. Desert Rock this summer and having 35 skua sightings, and none turning out to be a confirmable Great, it was nice to have easily identifiable adult Great Skuas on this trip. We had two-maybe three Great Skuas in Washington County on the way up. The possible third was seen at the same time as the second, but was flying away and we couldn't see the coloration well. The first Great was a dazzlingly beautiful individual with lots of light golden streaking on its upper parts with some even on its underparts. What a bird that was! There were also great numbers of Leach's Storm-Petrels in the area. Here's the checklist for that leg of the trip. https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S48302304

 Later on when we were in Charlotte, New Brunswick, we had another Great Skua and a South Polar Skua in view at the same time. That was another great treat, but I was only able to get shots of the South Polar as I only had my 100mm lens and it flew literally 10 feet over the boat! that checklist: https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S48302331

On the way home, we were treated to another Great Skua which ended up being in Hancock County, so that was nice to get for my local birding county. 

We were also treated to good numbers of Pomarine and Parasitic Jaegers as well, but no Long-tailed. 

Good birding, 

Nathan

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