Nov 5, 2005; S Padre Island: TRIP REPORT

Aboard   the Osprey II

Subject: WBC Pelagic Trip   Results – 5 November 2005

Date:   Sun, 6 Nov 2005 07:09:14 -0600

From: Sumita Prasad

The World Birding Center’s October pelagic trip was cancelled twice (the original   date and the re-schedule date) due to high seas. However, yesterday, November   5th, was our last scheduled pelagic trip of the year, and a nice group of   folks enjoyed some good birds. On behalf of the World Birding Center(WBC), I would like to thank our wonderful pelagic trip leaders who make these trips   exciting, adventurous, comfortable, and fun for our participants. Our talented group of leaders for the 2005 WBC Pelagics this year are: John Arvin, Eric Carpenter, Petra Hockey, Brad McKinney, Mike Overton, and Dwight Peake. Brad McKinney has provided a summary of yesterday’s 12-hour excursion:

Although moderate seas in the five-feet range presented more challenging conditions than the pelagic crew has been accustomed to of late, we still managed to record all three jaegers, including a close-range Long-Tailed Jaeger. By 7:30 am, we had our first Jaeger of the day, a Parasitic, performing a variety of aerial stunts while chasing Laughing Gulls near a shrimp boat. The next bird was our bird of the day. While Clay Taylor was reeling in a four-foot Wahoo, a Long-tailed Jaeger flew in to inspect the large fish. Clay quickly swapped the fishing pole for his bins, and added both a lifer fish and a lifer bird.   Awesome! To my knowledge, no photos were taken of the Long-tailed Jaeger (the conditions made bird photography pretty tough), but written details of the   bird will be sent to the TBRC.

By the end of the trip we added three Pomarine Jaegers , including an impressive dark-morph juvenile. Only the Parasitic Jaeger was found near shrimp boats,   all other Jaegers were solitary. One of the Poms was seen swooping and wheeling after flying fish. What agile birds! Other birds of note included   sixteen Bridled Terns (a pretty decent number for this late in the season) and a Cory’s Shearwater (1). We were also treated to many bow-riding bottlenose and spotted dolphins throughout the day. Like all Gulf of Mexico pelagics this one provided a wonderful learning experience. Hats off to the enthusiastic participants who took the weather in stride and made this trip enjoyable for everyone.

Many thanks to all our participants and supporters!

Sumita Prasad

Director of Birding

Fermata, Inc. & World Birding Center

PO Box 8129

Weslaco, TX 78599

Here is a map of the trip track as recorded by my GPS.

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