9/19/2025 - Pomarine Jaeger, 9/24/25 - Manx Shearwater

     The past two weeks I made it out on two tuna fishing trips.  The trips double for me as fishing and pelagic sightseeing opportunities.  We did well with the yellowfin tuna in the trips, but the pelagic sightings were not quite as fulfilling.  We did not travel out as far as any of the undersea canyons, yet we did venture out some 70 miles in about 200 feet of water.  We had very few if any cetaceans between the two trips and the seabird species and numbers were rather low.

We had one minke whale surface near our boat just before heading back to port.  But like many minke sightings, this smallest of the baleen whales quickly swam off before we could see it surface again.  The Wilson’s storm-petrels have dwindled down to small numbers, just a handful of birds around at one time.

The shearwater numbers were mostly in the single digits.  I managed only three different species out on the water.  All of the shearwaters I saw were great shearwaters except for two, which I noticed in my photos after returning home.  On the 19th I had a single Cory’s shearwater, and on the 24th I had a single manx shearwater.  I believe most of the Cory shearwaters have pulled out of our area waters.  The Manx shearwater was the first one I have seen in Ocean County since June 2021.  The Cory’s shearwater is the largest shearwater in the world and the Manx shearwater is one of the smaller species.
Manx shearwater.  © S. Weiss
Manx shearwaters are smaller than the greats and Cory's.  Manx has cleaner underwings than the great (below left) but not as clean as the Cory's (below right).  The Manx does not have a cap separated by a prominent white collar like the greater.  It does not have a small white rump patch like the greater, but it's all white undertail coverts do rise up behind the wings.  Its underside is clean white from chin to end of tail.

Left, great shearwaters.  Right, Cory's shearwater.  © S. Weiss
Notice the clean underside of the Cory's compared to the greats.

Besides some American herring gulls and a few great black-backed gulls there was a ring-billed gull and a couple common terns that I didn’t expect to see out as far as we were from land.  The one other pelagic bird I saw was expected but not always seen.  I had a handsome pomarine jaeger fly over the boat before it abruptly turned and flew away.  This particular jaeger was easy to identify because it was still sporting its twisted, spatulate tail.  I was engaged in a fishing task when I spotted the bulky jaeger, so by the time I was able to get off any photos it had already turned away, and its tail feature was not so evident in any of my shots.
Pomarine jaegers.  © S. Weiss
The bird on the left is the recent one from 9/19/2025.  The bird on the right is from 5/2021 to show the profile of the twisted tail feature.

As the weeks progress, I expect cetacean activity in the area to pick up.  I also except the bird species to start changing.  The storm-petrels and large shearwaters will be gone, and the alcids, sea ducks and gannets will be back in the area.

Yellowfin tuna.  © S. Weiss
The ocean is full of predators.  Big fish eat little fish and, in turn, bigger fish eat the big fish.  A large shark took a bite out of this tuna.


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