Birds and Other Nature Sightings

     On Sunday, I left home at 4:30 in the morning for Cape May to join a 12-hour pelagic trip aboard the American Star.  It was cold, about 35 degrees, but for mid-February in New Jersey that is not bad.  I go out on pelagics whenever I can because there are birds and other sea life out on the ocean that you just cannot find on land.  My previous pelagic trip last month was windy, colder with snow flurries.  Weather conditions this time were better, and my expectations were a little high.  This winter has been exceptional for alcids along the northeastern Atlantic, from New York to North Carolina.  I knew leaving home that this was an opportunity to see maybe five different alcids:   razorbill , dovekie , Atlantic puffin , common and thick-billed murres .  For the day, we scored four of the five; only missing a thick-billed murre.  The tally for the day was 282 razorbills, 55 dovekies, one puffin and one common murre, plus s...

   This past Friday I went on a 12-hour birding and marine life pelagic boat trip out of Cape May.  I was hoping to see jaegers (parasitic or possibly a pomarine), a couple different shearwaters or some other surprise birds.  Unfortunately, the only truly pelagic birds seen on the trip were some northern gannets, and they were on the inshore portion of the trip.  The only surprise birds we saw offshore were a couple of yellow-rumped warblers and a blackpoll warbler about 50 miles out.  As it turned out, they were the only birds we saw that far out. The trip, however, was salvaged by the whales we encountered on our way out and on our return to inshore waters.  In all, we saw seven humpback whales and a rarely encountered North Atlantic right whale.  On the way out, one of the humpback whales was very accommodating.  For what seemed like over a half hour, it surfaced time after time near the boat.  After surfacing and diving along one sid...