Birds and Other Nature Sightings

     This past Friday I drove down to Cape May for a 24 hour pelagic trip.  This was my third attempt for an overnight trip this year.  The previous two were cancelled due to weather and there were two other trips which I was unavailable.  This one was set to sail, and we left at 9 pm.  We reached our destination, Spencer Canyon, about 80 miles out, sometime after 5:30 am Saturday.  The day started out rather slow with some Wilson’s storm-petrels scattered around the area.  Action around the boat didn’t really start to pick up until later in the morning. The first interesting sighting was a small group of young Atlantic spotted dolphins .  They were young enough to not yet bear their namesake spots, which delayed their initial identification.  Until they start showing spots they might be confused with bottlenose dolphins .   These dolphins had a tricolored body and white-tipped beaks to help differentiate them from the bottlenose species. Spotted dolphins, sans spots.  © S. Weiss The