[texbirds] FINAL TRIP REPORT: Sept 20, 2014 SPI Texas Pelagic
- From: "Garett Hodne" <garyhodne@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "'Texbirds Posts'" <texbirds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 29 Sep 2014 17:50:37 -0500
Hi Pelagic Fanatics and Texbirders,
Everything just seemed to come together to make the past Saturday's
September 20th S Padre Island Texas Pelagic one of the best in a very long
time! The weather was cooperating the week prior to the trip with 2-3 ft
seas all week long following the 7 foot seas experienced the previous
weekend during the first "cold" front of the season. On Saturday as we
gathered in the predawn at the docks there was no perceptible wind.
Clearing the S Padre Island jetties we were greeted with calm seas of 2 ft
or less. The seas would remain a pretty nice with 2-3 feet throughout the
day.
On the long cruise to the shelf edge we had scattered showers all around us
in the distance and cruised through one nice downpour, something I only
recall rain 1 time before from all my Texas Pelagics. Following the rain
the skies began clearing and nice high clouds remained for the morning
keeping the heat down until the afternoon. There was very little bird
activity over the shelf for the first 4 hours except for a distant
Magnificent Frigatebird from the stern and few Royal Terns. The bright
lights of shrimp boats were visible a couple miles to the north of our
course but we decided to pass them by preferring to head straight for deep
water. Dwight spotted at distant "large white seabird flying fast and high"
away from us, he suspected it might be a tropicbird but it was just too far
away to confirm the ID. We reached the shelf edge at about 10am in very good
time by keeping to our planned due east heading.
Soon after at 10:10 am that we had our first good seabird a cooperative
Audubon's Shearwater. Then things were slow for another hour until a lone
Bridled Tern was seen right before we spotted the distant blows from the
first pod of Sperm Whales several hundred yards out. By now we were in very
deep water 2000-3,500 ft . That first group of 3-4 sperms sank into the
depths before we could get closer to them. No sooner did they disappear than
we immediately spotted a huge pod of what turned out to be Melon-headed
Whales excitedly making their way to our boat and encircling it for 15 -20
minutes. Conservatively we estimated 250+ whales (dolphins actually)
surrounding the boat and within feet of us. It was one of the greatest
wildlife spectacles we've ever seen and a lifer mammal for everyone on board
including our captain and his very excited young son.
Over the next few hours it seemed like non-stop action. A couple Band-rumped
Storm Petrels passed close by the bow. Then a distant huge splash seen off
the bow really startled us. As we watched in amazement we had 4 or 5 huge
Sperm Whales breach in rapid succession. Too bad they were maybe 1/2 mile
away, still it was just spectacular! No one aboard had ever seen Sperm
Whales breach before. As we cruised toward them to try for a closer look a
second closer pod of 6 sperms surfaced just in front of the boat, very
close. After a minute or two the two large bulls sounded for the depths off
the port bow showing off their flukes. Then the smaller females and their
calves approached the starboard bow giving us superb views of the two calves
side by side with their blunt noses reaching up out of the water to look us
over. There were even a few more whales from a third group at the same time
blowing behind us off the stern. By now we had seen somewhere around 16-19
Sperm whales. In 4 different pods! Finally 40 minutes later another few
blows from a fifth pod of sperm whales was spotted. Our total Sperm Whale
count for the day was 18-20+ an unprecedented high count for 20 + years of
Texas Pelagics, where we had seen Sperm Whales on only two previous S Padre
Island Texas Pelagics.
Following all the whale action it was a steady stream of sightings. We had
some brief looks at another Band-rumped Storm-Petrel, Audubon's and Cory's
Shearwater. We were also building a nice list of land birds as well
including Black-and-White Warbler, Yellow Warbler, Barn Swallows,
Olive-sided Flycatcher, cattle egret and numerous other unidentified
passerines. Once back over the continental shelf a very friendly sub-adult
Masked Booby greeted us and circled the boat for about 20 minutes. It was
fascinating to watch it repeatedly make shallow dives torpedoing just bellow
the waters surface in pursuit of flying fish that the boat was scattering.
As we were growing tired of watching the booby a flurry of 4 terns, 2
jaegers and a few passerines scrambled by the bow. It was confusing to sort
out all the action with binoculars alone. One Jaeger alternately chased a
fat passerine and then was sidetracked to chasing the terns. This jaeger was
initially identified as a 'parasitic' and the photos proved that the
'passerine' it was chasing was a Sora. There were 2 or 3 Bridled Terns in
the group and a second jaeger of uncertain ID. Reviewing the photos later
revealed that the 'parasitic' was actually a first summer Long-Tailed
Jaeger. The photos also revealed at least one of the terns was a Sooty Tern.
Soon we approached the first of a half dozen shrimpers we would investigate.
A second Masked Booby was nearby and the usual shrimp boat followers of
Royal Tern, Sandwich Terns. Laughing Gulls and a few Common Terns. The
second Shrimper had a pair of adult male Magnificent Frigatebirds perched in
the rigging for nice close up views. Between the second a third shrimpers a
pair of cooperative Pomarine Jaegers were harassing a group of terns and
gulls and then sat on the water allowing us to approach and study them.
Continuing on the cruise back to shore we passed a number of more anchored
shrimpers and with good numbers of the usual followers. What was unusual is
that we also picked up 3 more Masked Boobies of different ages and 2 more
Magnificent Frigatebirds. The ship channel outside the jetties had the
usual huge feeding flock of 1000+ Black Terns, a few Least and Common Terns,
Laughing Gulls, many Sandwich and Royal Terns and Brown Pelicans.
While we didn't have any rare seabird sightings we certainly had a high
species count for a Texas Pelagic. Only one other trip in 20 years of Texas
Pelagics has reached 9 species of pelagic seabirds. And once the activity
started when we reached deep water it continued at a pretty quick pace
throughout the day. It was however the mammal sightings that really proved
to be the highlight for everyone on board. The number of Sperm Whales and
their breaching antics was amazing. It may have been outdone by the huge
herd of Melon-headed Whales, never before seen on a Texas Pelagic.
In conclusion I wish to especially thank the people at Osprey Cruises for
working closely with us to make this trip a great success, especially our
Captain Bobby. Additionally our leaders Brad McKinney, Dwight Peake, Eric
Carpenter, John O'Brien, Mary Gustafson and Petra Hockey all make a huge
contribution to these trips with their spotting abilities and knowledge of
seabirds and marine life. I hope that all our participants had fun and will
plan on joining us in October and again in 2015 for more great offshore
adventures on Texas Pelagics.
Good seabirding,
Gary Hodne
COMPLETE PELAGIC SEABIRD LIST:
COSH - Cory's Shearwater - 2
AUSH - Audubon's Shearwater - 3
BRSP - Band-rumped Storm-Petrel - 3
MAFR - Magnificent Frigatebird - 5
MABO - Masked Booby - 6
SOTE - Sooty Tern - 1
BRTE - Bridled Tern - 4
POJA - Pomarine Jaeger - 2
PAJA - Parasitic Jaeger - 1 (?)
LTJA - Long-tailed Jaeger - 1
NON-PELAGIC SEABIRDS
BRPE - Brown Pelican - 20
LAGU - Laughing Gull -233
LETE - Least Tern - 10
BLTE - Black Tern - 1000+
COTE -Common Tern - 13
ROYT - Royal Tern - 424
SATE - Sandwich Tern - 134
LANDBIRD MIGRANTS:
CAEG - Cattle Egret - 1
SORA - Sora - 1
OSFL - Olive-sided Flycatcher - 1
BARS - Barn Swallow - 2
BAWW - Black-and-White Warbler - 1
YEWA - Yellow Warbler - 1
WEWA - Worm-eating warbler - 1
OTHER MARINE LIFE
Sea Turtle - 1 (sp?)
Sperm Whale - 18-20+
Melon-headed Whales - 250+
Bottlenose Dolphins - 20
Tripletail Fish - 2
Flying Fish - 100's
Ps. It has taken me a bit longer than usual to get all the sightings data
straightened out to help in putting this report together. There were 3 full
pages of handwritten sighting logs (usually there is barely one page), my
digital recorded notes and what seemed like hundreds of photographs to
review along with all the great commentary posted to the Texas Pelagics
FaceBook page to sort through. If you haven't yet joined this group and
looked at the photos you are really missing out on a ton of good photos and
insight about the marine environment of the Gulf of Mexico. It is really a
valuable resource.
www.TexasPelagics.com
www.GarettHodne.com <http://www.garetthodne.com/>
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