The overnight pelagic trip out of Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn this weekend was yet another successful and enlightening trip to the deep waters of the New York Bight.
Overnight, some of those who were awake got to witness some of the Perseid meteor shower, including a few very impressive ones streaking through the sky. There were also a couple of unidentified passerines that silently flew over the boat, visible as mere shadows above the lights of the boat. Sunrise on Monday, 8/14, found us having a long moment of silence in honor of Tom Johnson over the mouth of the McMaster Canyon, northeast of Hudson Canyon. His memory was with many of us throughout this interesting day at sea, as it will be on all foreseeable future trips to these parts. After an hour and a half in this vicinity we worked our way south and west, spending time in the Babylon Canyon and on the shelf between the Babylon and the Hudson Canyon. We then headed from shore over the east wall of the Hudson Canyon. Water temperatures were fairly consistent between 77 and 79 degrees F during most of our time beyond and along the shelf edge. With the weak cold front overnight Sunday into Monday we had a few migrant passerines, the most unexpected of which was a *Downy Woodpecker* 106 statute miles from the closest point of land (Shinnecock Inlet east jetty, apparently). A *Cliff Swallow* was present flying around the boat at the same time as the woodpecker, making for an interesting combination. We also had at least three encounters with Barn Swallows throughout the day, and a lone *Eastern Kingbird* a bit over 50 miles from land. More details will be in the eBird Trip Report linked here, but a list of additional highlights is below: https://ebird.org/tripreport/151450 Birds: *White-faced Storm-Petrel*- 1 in heavy wing molt followed around for several minutes *Bridled Tern-* 1 adult Band-rumped Storm-Petrel- *21* (most or all showed no active wing molt) Red-necked Phalarope-* 31* (including two different groups of 11) Audubon's Shearwater- 38 Wilson's Storm-Petrel- *~4,300* (this is added up from the hourly checklists, but the margin of error is certainly a couple of hundred) Black Tern- 2 Least Tern- 3 Cory's Shearwater- 32 Great Shearwater- 32 Non-Birds: *Sowerby's Beaked-Whale*- 4+ breaching fully out of the water in the distance *Cuvier's Beaked-Whale*- 2+ close to the boat *Whale Shark*- 1 in the wake as we were motoring, and not definitively identified at the time Fin Whale- 6+ Humpback Whale- 2 Minke Whale- 1 Pilot Whale- ~20 Several pods each of Common Dolphin, Bottlenose Dolphin, Risso's Dolphin Loggerhead Sea Turtle- 3 Cownose Rays- multiple groups of up to 30 individuals Flying Fish- Many of multiple species throughout the day Sargassum Crab- 1 gnawing on a piece of chum in the deep Several other sharks, some of which may have identifiable photos Good Pelagic Birding -Doug Gochfeld. Brooklyn, NY. -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME.htm http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES.htm http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birding.aba.org/maillist/NY01 Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
