Seabird & Whale Tales Tale’s Excursion
Sunday, September 10, 2006
Clear skies, cool temperatures, brisk North winds for much of the day, and choppy sea conditions made for challenging trip this year. Undaunted by the conditions, over 100 participants enjoyed some great sightings, good fellowship, valued prizes won during the annual shipboard drawing, and delicious fresh chowder served during this year’s 8 A.M. to 6 P.M. cruise.
Sea conditions and knowledge of recent seabird and whale activity confined our activities to Stellwagen Bank this year, however the results were not disappointing. What follows are approximations and actual tallies of birds and marine mammals observed during the cruise.
Seabirds observed
- Common Loon - 2
- Greater Shearwater - 75+
very modest numbers of this often very common austral breeder - Sooty Shearwater - 6
- Manx Shearwater - 1
- Wilson’s Storm-Petrel - 10
many of this abundant seabird had undoubtedly already departed for the season - Northern Gannet - 8
- Double-crested Cormorant - too numerous to count
- Great Cormorant - 1
a single bird atop Plymouth’s Bug Light on the return trip - Black-bellied Plover - 1
- Red-necked Phalarope - 4
- Parasitic Jaeger - 4
- Long-tailed Jaeger - 1
a sub-adult briefly seen was the highlight of the seabird sightings - Jaeger sp. - 3
- Laughing Gull - too numerous to count
- Herring Gull - too numerous to count
- Great Black-backed Gull - too numerous to count
- Roseate Tern - 2+
- Common Tern - 800+
- Forster’s Tern - 2
seen with feeding Common Terns in Plymouth Harbor - Black Tern - 8
- Common Loon - 2
- Passerine sp. - 1
Marine mammals observed:
- Humpback Whale - 22
includes Salt and her 10th calf, Soya,
Cardu and her calf, and
several mother and calf pairs - Finback Whale - 4 including 1-2 rarely observed breaching animals
- Minke Whale - 9
