Seabirds

Common Terns Sitting on a Lobster Buoy

The all day trip that I was on Sunday.  Remember was entitled "Seabirds and Whales Tales".  So I would like to show some of the photos of seabirds that we saw.  A variety of seabirds were identified and could be seen with binoculars, but because of distances, and a lot of times flying away from the boat, it was hard to get photographs.  All four shearwaters were identified; Great, Cory's, Manx, and Sooty.  They were great black-backed gull's, herring gulls, laughing gulls and a second year black-luggage kittiwake.  The gulls ranged in age from first-year to adults in their plumage.  Common terns were flying around, along with parasitic jaeger in a northern fulmar.  Wilson's storm petrels were flitting all around.  If the whales were feeding, we would've seen a lot more seabirds because the seabirds like to pick up the sand lances that are left over.  Normally, chumming brings in a lot of birds, but the only ones that seem to be interested with a great black-back gulls.  All the northern Gannet's that we observed range from 1st to 3rd year plumage birds.

Shearwater Flying over the Wake from the Boat

Corey Shearwater With Reflection

Great Black-Backed Gull Sitting on a Buoy in the Shipping Lane

Great Black-backed Gull Landing for Chum

Northern Gannet in Flight

Second Year Plumage Black-Legged Kittiwake in Flight

Using the coupon code mborn you will receive a 15% discount on any or all of the Topaz plug-ins.



Help Support my blog by purchasing from Amazon. Clicking on this link and utilizing the link does not cost you anything.
BUY FROM AMAZON

Whale of a Day

Sunday was a gorgeous day, I spent did with around 100 other people on a whale watching boat (Plymouth Whale Watching), which leaves from the state pier with the Mayflower II is anchored.  The event is the twice a year, "Sea Bird & Whale Tales Excursion" sponsored By the New England Coastal Wildlife Alliance.  As opposed to the normal four hour whale watch trip, this is scheduled as a nine hour trip.  There are guest naturalists, NEWAC interns, plus the people on board are interested in nature, bird watching and whales.  Also, the amount of participants is limited.  Therefore, instead of being packed on board like a standard will watch, there is plenty of opportunity to be able to observe and photograph without being crowded.

Today's blog is just going to describe a small portion of the trip.  Since there was enough for a few blogs.  It was a beautiful day with everything from a high overcast bright sunny skies, the seas were basically calm, except in the afternoon down off the side of Cape Cod, where there was more of a slight's swell.  The winds did keep things cool, but not uncomfortable.

After leaving the dock in Plymouth, we slowly made our way around Plymouth Long Beach identifying the birds that were observed.  We then traveled up Cape Cod Bay out into the Atlantic to the Southwest corner of Stellwagon Bank.  As we were coming into Stellwagon Bank in the distance.  We saw a whale watching boat along with two humpbacks that kept breaching.  Slowly moving into the area, we came up to one humpback flipper slapping which it kept up for a while.  Then this whale decided to take a dive, showing us it's tail and then after being down a few minutes, the humpback came up and breached right in front of us.  Lucky I was ready and watching and was able to capture the activity of the breach.  The humpback started flipper slapping again and then for the second time dove and everybody was hoping for another breach.  However, the humpback decided to fool us, swam under the boat and came up on the other side and started flipper slapping.

Humpback Whale - Megaptera novaeangliae flipper slapping

Humpback Whale - Megaptera novaeangliae flipper slapping

Humpback Whale - Megaptera novaeangliae dive

Humpback Whale - Megaptera novaeangliae breach

Humpback Whale - Megaptera novaeangliae flipper slapping and you can see the humpbacks eye

Throughout the day we had other encounters with whales in activity and identified all four of the shearwaters, Northern fulmar, parasitic Jaeger and juveniles northern gannets.

Stay tuned for more of this adventure on future blogs.  The second Sunday in September will be the Fall Seabird & Whales Tales Excursion .  More information can be had at http://www.necwa.org/

Other Birds Seen on the Cape

Red-breasted Merganser-Male

During our birding trip on Thursday we also saw other species of birds in Provincetown harbor besides the gulls and the thick-billed murre. There were red-breasted mergansers and common eiders swimming and feeding.

Red-breasted Merganser-Female

Common Eider-Male

Common Eider-Female

After we had left Race Point we stopped at the Beech Forest, where the usual common passerines hang out. In fact, if you bring some sunflower seeds and put them in your palm Black-capped-Chickadees and tufted titmouse is will come down and feed right out of your hand. The birds are very used to people since feeding them by hand has been going on for many years and families will bring their children there and let the child feed the birds. A great way for children to learn about and enjoying nature.

Tufted Titmouse Feeding from Hand

Black-capped Chickadee Feeding from Hand

Other birds present at the Beech Forest, included red-breasted woodpeckers (unable to photograph) white-breasted nuthatch, white-throated sparrow and Blue Jays.

White-throated Sparrow

White-breasted Nuthatch

Blue Jay

The last interesting bird was a nice close-up of a juvenile Horned Grebe in Wellfleet Harbor.

Horned Grebe

Passerines at Wellfleet Bay

While I was at Wellfleet Bay Audubon Sanctuary, I also spent time at the two feeders that are on either side of the path leading down into the main sanctuary.  I set up my tripod and camera on the side so I had a good view, and once the birds got used to me had no problems photographing them.  There were some difficulty, the first was when other visitors would walked down the path, the birds would scatter, but, they would return in a short period of time.  The other problem, was that the birds would fly in, grab some seeds and fly away to eat the seeds..  What I would love to have done, utilizing the techniques that Alan Murphy describes in his e-books, is set up perches, so the bird with land on it before going down and grabbing the seeds.  However, I made do with what was available.  At least some of the birds with land on branches and stay there long enough so I could obtain photographs.

American Goldfinch in winter plumage

Black-capped Chickadee

Blue Jay

Downy Woodpecker

House Sparrow

Northern Cardinal

Pine Siskin

Pine Siskin

Birding Cape Cod

I spent Thursday, March 7 birding quit my good friend Doug. We were finally able to get together to enjoy a day of birding. We started out at Race Point Beach in the Cape Cod National Seashore located in Provincetown Massachusetts. There was a large number of northern gannets flying by plus scooters, eiders and red-breasted mergansers. There was even a humpback whale visible.

Northern Gannett

From Race Point Beach we went to Herring Cove Beach where there were the usual gulls- Herring, ring bill, and great black backed. Seaward there were the same birds present.

flight of see ducks

ring-billed gull

Next we went down to the Beech Forest Trail, where we had a great look at a fox sparrow right at the entrance to the trail. The chickadees and titmouse's kept following us looking for a handout, in fact, when Doug stuck out his hand to point at a bird a chickadee landed on his finger. This is because many people come to the Beech Forest Trail and feed the birds from their hands. Is this a good idea on not you will have to answer for yourself but it does make the birds less afraid.

Black-capped chickadee feeding out of the hand

downy woodpecker

tufted titmouse

fox sparrow

When we completed the Beech Forest Trail, it was getting onto lunch time so we traveled down to the parking lot at McMillan pier in Provincetown. Beside the usual gulls and rock pigeons that are present around the pier, in the water of the harbor were eiders, red-breasted mergansers and long-tailed ducks. Finally I was able to obtain photographs of a male long-tailed duck. The only problem was while I was photographing the long-tailed ducks, Doug identified a rarity, a King Eider, and I missed out in photographing it because it took off and headed out. However, I did also identify it.

Long-tailed duck mail

pair of long-tailed ducks

female red-breasted merganser

After lunch of delicious lobster rolls we traveled down to the Wellfleet Massachusetts Audubon Sanctuary, we bird it mainly around Goose Pond. The interesting finding in the pond was four red-breasted mergansers. Usually these birds are found in salt water but this group was swimming up and down the pond. On the trail there was an eastern chipmunk stuffing its face.

eastern chipmunk with its mouth pouches full

Goose Pond

read-breasted mergansers in a row

So finished another enjoyable day. I am now starting to pack for my trip to Florida to visit with a good friend of mine, who was my roommate on St. Paul Island in the Pribilofs.