Water Water Everywhere...And Birds

The good news about the pelagic trip we took off Hatteras and into the gulf stream was that we added 9 life birds that we just weren't going to see anywhere else but well out into the Atlantic Ocean. We added a 10th life bird, the great black-backed gull, when crossing a bridge in Manteo. In conjunction with our finally catching up on the blue grouse species split, which added yet another life bird, I brought my ABA-area life list up to 470.

The bad news about the pelagic trip...well, it was not a disaster of either Gilligan's Island or Rime of the Ancient Mariner standards, certainly. But 11 hours on a boat, in choppy water with large, drenching quantities of salt spray, is dull and rather nauseating (especially if, like me, you forgot when you woke up at dark o'clock to take your birth control pill so your hormones started getting excited about the possibilities and the pain from the cramping made you sick). Over half the passengers in the boat ended up with their heads over the side at one time or another, and several were camped out there for the majority of the trip (or, like a nice guy from the Netherlands, had to lie down in order not to get sick). Robert and I were wearing the anti-seasickness patches, and it definitely worked for him. I think it mostly worked for me as well, though I had a period of dizziness that could have been a side effect of the patch.

My general state was clearly less miserable than our last (second) trip, out of Monterrey, CA, where I was cold and fantasizing about hot Texas parking lots for most of the time. And it was much less pleasant than our first trip, out of Westport, WA, where I loved standing at the prow of the boat for the several hours of darkness in the morning and I managed to sleep away most of the boring return-trip hours in the afternoon dry, happy, and somehow cat-like, sitting comfortably in the sun.

My experience this time was a lot more variable. When I wasn't feeling sick, and there were new birds (or frolicking bottlenose dolphins, who are awesome) to watch, it was fun. I even enjoyed the thorough splashings I got the first 20-something times, and I admit that the splashes kept provoking uncontrollably laughing/giggling in me at first, too. I was not able to keep track of the number of splashings, but it was a lot. (At one point, I got so thoroughly soaked by a splash that didn't hit anyone else that one of the other passengers commented, "That looked targeted." Earlier, I'd had to warn off one of the guides who was trying to eat a sandwich when he sat down next to me and noticed how wet I was. The Atlantic is not pacific.)

I kept getting confused about the small, grey-ish or blue-ish birds with short wings that would suddenly appear and then disappear until I realized that they were the flying fish that Robert kept pointing out but that I missed the first several times he mentioned them. And frankly, they kept confusing me, at least temporarily, after I had that realization. I mean, yes, they are called flying fish, but you really don't expect a fish to have wings and fly. (Their typical flight is 160 feet, according to Wikipedia.)


But watching the ocean, and getting splashed, gets really tedious before it gets mind-numblingly boring. The bench we were sitting on was hard and not deep enough, so my ass got alternatively sore and numb. (My leg and hip were sore from the contorted way I sat on the bench for several days afterwards.) Unlike Robert, I was never able to fall asleep, which was frustrating because I was tired from the early start. (And the sore leg and hip interfered with my sleep for a couple of nights afterwards.)

One unfortunate side effect of splashing from seawater - it gets salt all over you. An even more unfortunate side effect - it washes away your sunscreen. So yes, I got a weird sunburn that was worst on my forehead (because my hat kept trying to blow off and I eventually used it as a barrier to keep my binocs from getting soaked) and the 6 inches from my knee up my leg, where it was exposed to the sun during all that uncomfortable sitting on the way back to land.

So, does it sound like I had a bad time? I did...and I didn't. (Several times, I told Robert that I never wanted to take a pelagic trip again, but we'll see if that sticks. I think I need to give it a few years, though, before I revisit the decision.)

Now let's get to the Good Stuff, the new ocean-dwelling (ocean-flying? ocean-skimming?) birds I saw!

Cory's shearwater
Greater shearwater
Audubon's shearwater
Sooty tern
Wilson's storm-petrel
Black-capped petrel
Band-rumped storm-petrel
Bridled tern
Manx shearwater

My favorite of this group was definitely the Wilson's. The way they glide/patter along the top of the roiling waves is really cool to see. (Admittedly, it becomes somewhat less cool after several hours, but enjoying the excellent views of this copious species did help keep me saner during the Severe Boredom periods.)


And I want to go on public record saying that I regret the fact that my bag of Sun Chips was blown away into the ocean. First BP, now me. This pollution is a damn shame.

Oh, another thing: I added a bunch of birds to my NC list on trip besides the pelagics and the gull I already mentioned.

Common moorhen
Purple martin (about 100,000 of them roost under a bridge; I got the t-shirt)
Osprey
Laughing gull
White ibis
White-faced ibis
Brown pelican
Black tern
Sanderling
Piping plover (a "threatened" species that is causing some beach closures to protect their breeding grounds that has some people on the island pissed off - a human dimensions of wildlife sort of thing)
Willet
Royal tern
Black skimmer
Boat-tailed grackle