MA - Audubon' Shearwaters - 08/26

Yet another highlight from the BBC Extreme Pelagic on August 25th/26th. We had excellent views of three individual Audubon's Shearwaters on the 26th, though these numbers were rather lower than might have been expected on a typical late August deep water pelagic off Massachusetts. Still, the quality of the views and the comparisons drawn between these and the Barolo Shearwater(s) seen earlier in the day more than made up for the small numbers of Audubon's. Digi-bin images taken using Leica 8x42 bins and Canon Powershot A590.

 

Audubon's Shearwater -  exact location?, Massachusetts waters, August 26th, 2012. One of two Audubon's giving excellent views on the return journey towards Nantucket shoals. Compared to the Barolo Shearwater (below) seen earlier in the day, the Audubon's appears much darker below, especially on the underside of the longish tail, the wing margins and the neck sides. The Barolo appears much whiter below in all aspects with the white undertail coverts almost reaching the tip of the tail. Although difficult to see in this poor record shot, the bill of the Barolo Shearwater is also smaller and finer than Audubon's. What a rare treat to have wonderful views of both of these species in the same day!

JPS

RI - Audubon's Shearwaters - 08/19

Images from last week's twenty-four hour pelagic to the Block Canyon area, RI. We stayed strictly within RI waters. Our outward journey through the night was hampered by storm activity causing the Captain to divert and go around around the storms resulting in us falling well short of our 'hoped-for' arrival in shelf-waters at first light. Never the less, we had a very successful day with an impressive tally of at least 26 Audubon's Shearwaters, the most I've seen in a single outing off the New England coast. These included one group of four and one group of three birds. On the down side, the trip was a little slow in terms of variety with no jaegers or skuas though we did see a decent example of Scopoli's Shearwater on the return journey. The most frustrating bird of the day was a near-certain Band-rumped Storm-petrel seen in mid-morning by just a handful of us from the stern of the upper deck. All in all, this was a very enjoyable experience with some very nice people.

All of these are digibinned images using Canon Powershot A590 and Leica 8x42 binoculars.

Group of 4 Audubon's Shearwaters, north of the head of Block Canyon.

MA - Audubon's Shearwater and more - 07/18

The BBC Extreme Pelagic on July 18th produced a Massachusetts record tally of Audubon's Shearwaters with 19 being logged in the warmer shelf waters well south of Nantucket. Views were generally good though not quite as satisfying as on other BBC pelagics to this area, perhaps due to the rougher sea conditions. This heavily molting bird (featured in the first three shots here) was the only one that came reasonably close to the boat.



Aududon's Shearwater. Fifteen miles NW of West Atlantis Canyon, MA. First Audubon's of the day rising well above the horizon followed just seconds later by a stunning Black-capped Petrel!

Greater Shearwater - About 240 seen during the day.

Cory's Shearwaters. The official count for the day tallied 232 birds though I must confess that it seemed like more at the time. Many were seen well and all/most, like the birds in these shots, resembled C.d. borealis with no strong candidates for C.d.diomedia, despite some diligent checking.

Audubon's Shearwaters, vicinity of Veatch's Canyon, MA - August 23rd.

Nice view of the dark undertail coverts.




Image selection from about four Audubon's Shearwaters seen on the most recent BBC Extreme pelagic, all of the identified birds coming from the mid-to-late afternoon period. A fifth bird seen earlier in the day went down as an unidentified small black-and-white shearwater.