Pelagic Primer (2026)

This is uh I I hope going to be a really fun slide deck. Um one thing that I really wanted to do was add I've been trying to take more video over the last couple years. Um seeing the way some of these birds move and fly I think is um actually more helpful than just talking about field marks. The problem, I'm going to quickly admit, is uh some of the video, it's really hard to hold a telephoto lens steady on a moving boat and track with birds that move erratically. Um, I've tried using stabiliz stabilizing software on some of them, others it it's just too jumpy. Um, so going to quickly admit, um, you might, uh, I hope I don't cause any seasickness, uh, just watching this. Um, but for any, uh, super photosensitive viewers, I'll I'll give the warning before any video, I guess. Uh, and you can let me know if it's just not worth it. Maybe we'll start skipping them. But, um, hopefully they they're good enough. So, as a quick kind of outline what I want to talk about, um it'll help to look at the Gulf of Maine first. Why is it such a good place for attracting um a variety of seabirds? Um then this is really just going to be focused on seabird ID. Um I whittleled this down a lot. We we will start with some common species. I know I threw in a few like ducks and things that you'll often see on boats. not not um true seabirds or pelagic species. Uh generally when we refer to these these pelagic birds, we're going to be talking about things that uh that live there entire lives out to sea only returning to land to nest. Um and that's generally going to be this group of um what we call tube noses the procilerformies like uh sheerwaters storm petrols and then uh joggers and and we'll wrap up with skuas are some really fun ID challenges. These are the bigger like targets on a lot of the the boat trips that we do. Um, so we'll really focus on talking about those ideas and then, uh, I've saved a handful of slides at the end to talk about our boat trip on Sunday. Um, acknowledging that there might be some folks here that, uh, that aren't even coming on um, the boat trip. Uh, we have our our annual pelagic trip out of Bar Harbor. Um, I also want to acknowledge that uh the reason we we I did this program years ago just as kind of same idea to to prep people. But um after the trips, we always ask people for feedback and um the the most obvious thing reading last year's feedback was that uh birding from boats are really hard. And so I want to kind of use this to, you know, again, get you ready for seeing some of these birds because again, like it can be quick observations that can be um distant, difficult, you know, rocking boats sometimes. Um, and I'll admit it's also hard for us as guides. And that was one of the funniest bits of feedback we got is that people said, "Oh, you know, on the microphone you were just announcing that it was a joerger, but you weren't even saying what kind of jo." And the funny thing is it it often takes us a minute to figure it out. And you know, we want to be able to call these birds out as quickly as possible so we can get everyone on them. Um, but sometimes, you know, we're honestly we're reviewing photos after a bird, you know, is gone. and we're we're looking uh through, you know, large flocks. So, I'll admit right now, you know, there's there's some behind thescenes stuff that makes these boat trips even harder. Um, but hopefully I can explain some of those things as we go. All right, without further ado, let's talk about the Gulf of Maine. This is a fun uh bathimemetry uh map looking at uh the depth. You can think of bthimemetry as kind of the the opposite of um uh like topog it's below water topography. It's it's going we're looking at uh these these ridges that are offshore. Um where we're primarily going to be going is um from Bar Harbor. Sorry, I know my cursor is sometimes hard to see on screen resolutions. I'll try to if I shake it, it goes a little bigger. We're going to be coming out of Bar Harbor and traveling east later. I do have a a map of the track that we hope to take. We typically um go offshore to the these areas called um the ballpark. Uh sometimes out to Mount Desert Rock and usually traveling traveling east across um an area called uh the bumps and then we often go over to Grand Manan Banks. The unique thing about these features is that they are these um these underwater ridges where there's really cold water traveling uh at at low depths. When it hits these ridges, it gets forced upward in a phenomenon called upwellings. And that is pushing all this nutrient-rich uh water to the surface. That usually includes a lot of uh good food. um things like little uh copia pods and stuff that um everything from fish, whales, and then of course birds are going to be feeding on. So those are kind of the the reasons that we we go to these areas. And honestly, you know, we're we cover a lot of ground on these trips. And so there's always a chance of encountering stuff in between. This next one, um, this is a always hurts my brain a little bit, but this is a fun little fly over. Um, credit to, um, Roworth and and Signal for, uh, for this. It's just going to rotate around so you can see this, uh, bathimemetry a little bit better. Look at some of these upwellings, if it'll play. You can also see how the Gulf of Maine basically acts um like this big bowl uh or the the cold water that comes in and off to the right in the screen here now coming beneath us. Let me go back one slide just to point out one really nice thing is the the incredibly cold water up here by the mouth of the Bay of Fundy. Um, and the incredible tides that we get and and um just movements of water kind of coming in and out of there is another reason this is such a a productive area. I wanted to show these maps. Um, this is for uh today. So, not as helpful as we start thinking about um uh excuse me, is this one from today? This was just I think a placeholder. It's not going to be as helpful when we start thinking about um the boat trip on Sunday, but if you don't know this website, it's earth.nolchool. Um has some really cool overlays that you can do. And this was the one I really wanted to show um because I think it really um helps show why we get some birds in the Gulf of Maine and and not some others. Um, so the overway we're looking at here are ocean currents at the surface plus and then the um, so that's why you'll see move in a second when I press play. And then um, sea surface temperature is the gradient. So see if this will animate. So you can see the Gulf Stream. That's this big current out here coming off of the Mid-Atlantic. Uh, super warm water. The scale that we're basically looking at is that this this really red tone here. Sorry, I thought that would keep playing. Anyways, this really red tone out here in the Gulf Stream, that warm water is around 85 degrees Fahrenheit. Up here in the Gulf of Maine, where this nice green tone is, where our boat trip's going to be going, again, really nutrient-rich water. Um, that's only around 55° this time of year. And uh the interesting thing is that's going to mean there's going to be lots of birds there, but not the same birds that you're going to, you know, read about if you're going on a pelagic trip out into the Gulf Stream. Uh it's always interesting. There was a a trip out of New York that was making a lot of news the other day where um a very long trip they went way out to get out to the continental shelf out into that really warm water and they saw things like white-tailed um excuse me white tailed tropic bird. Uh this is where when you hear about trips that get you know these crazy rare birds like trendi petrol um whiteface storm petrol those are warm water loving birds uh because of the food that is associated with the temperature of water. That's one of the biggest reasons that um there's a number of seabirds that really just won't um I was going to say they won't ever come into the Gulf of Maine except we know that the Gulf of Maine is one of the fastest warming bodies of water. So perhaps it's just a matter of time. Um but certainly things, you know, we always cross our fingers that we might get something like Otabon sheer water or excuse me, it's changed now. Saraso shear water uh could come into the Gulf of Maine, but that is truly that's a really warm water bird. So, we're going to need a little bit more climate change before something like that happens. Here's the worst slide I could ever make. um a screenshot of a spreadsheet that I've um I inherited this spreadsheet from uh I want to give a a real tip of the cap to um Lyall Brickner uh longtime volunteer for main Audabon who really was the one to start doing uh this pelagic trip. So his records go back to 1995 was the first year the the trip was run. I took over sometime around here 20 um what was it? Um I've been doing this for a while. Um 2014ish. Um and I've kept this updated. It's impossible. What a pain it would be to look at this and I almost I wasn't even really going to show it because there's funny things about like um we've we've run this trip at different times of the year as late as you know the second week of October. Um, but it's really an impressive list and and I did want to still include it to say like we're collecting some really cool data on these trips, especially how um birds in the Gulf of Maine are changing. Uh, I do have this open, you know, I'll say if um here it is. if folks want to hang out later. Um, and if you have like specific questions about certain birds and want to like get really nitty-gritty, um, there's some fun stuff you can tease out. I think it's just going to be mind-numbing to talk about it too much here. Um like lesser black beckull is my favorite one where that's a bird that we used to even a decade ago we would only see like one or two on this trip and last year I think we had 36 um that is they are just going through some really crazy population changes as they've now got a a breeding population um uh in western Greenland and now we see them migrating through every September. Yeah, Rita asks, "Is it publicly available?" Not yet. Um, mostly because it's a mess. Uh, it has all sorts of little like notes and tabs on it that uh um I'd love to clean it up and make it available. Um, so someday uh but for now um let's go through some basics. Uh I do love starting with one bird. We had this the pelagic trip often attracts uh folks from outside of Maine and it's really funny because we take for granted how common commoners are. Our largest sea duck. The males are absolutely gorgeous. Um I usually like telling the whole life history story because they don't get enough respect. They are the coolest birds ever. I'll just real quickly say the males are some of the worst dads ever. They take they have no pardon raising the young. In September, we shouldn't be seeing downy little chicks like this. But those females have to spend 24 to 26 days incubating the nest by themselves, often not even leaving to eat or drink. Um, they lose up to 45% of their body mass by the time that they come down to the water. Uh, they're basically just feathering bones at that point. And then, yep, in September, those males are going to come back and start courting the females already. So, uh, that's, you know, a lot to be said there. Anyways, a fun thing, uh, some of the ID challenges that might come with them are, especially some of these younger males, um, like the one-year-old males or males that are just starting to mol and get some of the white can be especially confusing. I would say looking for just the head shape, that kind of classic Roman nose look to all of our iders and all their plumages um is pretty straightforward. We are starting to see ducks uh return south already. The a lot of these things like scoters that are going to be overwintering in the Gulf of Maine. So, um it's just that kind of classic thing to to keep in mind that our whitewing scoters, um I think all these are taken from the boat we're actually going to be on. Uh pretty straightforward. Our surf scoters are going to be coming back. One of my favorite colloquial names for surf scotater. If you talk to some crusty old maners, you know, old duck hunters, um they call them skunkheaded coots. I guess skunk head because the the males have that white stripe on the back of the head. Um, and then just to show this is where, you know, some of the ID challenges become a little bit uh harder when you're in some rough seas. Luckily, spoiler, um, Sunday looks incredible. Uh, we have seen seas just like this on our boat trips before. Um, we've had trips we should have canled, but um, well, that's a story for another time. And real quick, I think one of the last uh non um I guess I have a couple others. Uh one of the uh nonpelagic species I just want to mention are corrants because we often sometimes we'll go to as I mentioned Mount Desert Rock. Um and being able to pick out something like great corance amongst double crested it's usually a big target for people. Uh great corance do live up to their name and these big blocky um angular corance. Uh the adults are pretty straight pretty easy with the white um feathering below their little ghouer pouch. The if you can see it the coloring at that pouch is this almost more banana yellow compared to the kind of burnt orange color that you see on a on a double crested. And again they're blocky. They're they're much larger. To me, they kind of have this like straight across the head, angle down the neck, angled down to the body. Um unlike these double crested. So, here's a great corrant sitting on a nest surrounded by these very s smooth uh um smooth shapes of the smaller double crested. And then one comparison showing um this time of year we should also see the the juvenile the younger great corance that um they have this bright white belly that usually has this clear demarcation across the chest and then getting into the more modeled color in the neck. Um on double crested I wish this was a young one turned around. Usually their brightest color is like up in the chest and into the throat. So whitest on the belly is going to be great. lightest on the chest and throat will be double crested. Um, but again, big blocky massive bird. Um, and to really quickly, you know, illustrate one point here. Here's some results from the main bird atlas. We know double crusted corn are nesting all over the coast in Maine. Um, a little hard to see that coastline with all these blocks illustrated. The the dark blocks are where they're confirmed breeding. So, on most of our offshore islands where they're safe from predators, great corrant is a um they're on the main endangered species list because there's only a couple islands that they're still nesting on. Um if you ever go out of um Whoa. Uh my brain just stopped. uh out of Vinyl Haven. Uh you can go past some of the islands and take a trip out to Seal Island uh National Wildlife Refuge and see our largest colony out there. But that's the problem. They're only on a couple islands. Uh we do get birds from further north that come um wintering here. So now in September, we've got really good chances of seeing them. Here's one of these kind of inbetweeners. Uh you know, probably going on on two years old. um a big blocky adult, but you can see it's starting to get that dark speckling on the body. Um and this is how we sometimes see them, especially from the the boat. Again, even if you know, you kind of squint. I hope you can pick out there's at least two of these um big great corance here with the that all that white kind of down low. This bird's interesting, but it looks kind of petite to me. Worth also acknowledging it's September, there's shore birds migrating. It's incredible what we sometimes see offshore. Um hopefully it's easy to ID things like blackbellied clovers with their, you know, um solidly black axillaries, those armpits. Um but we also often get a lot of song birds. Uh uh that's that'll be a fun one if if we anyone wants to hang out and look at that spreadsheet later. the list of song birds that we've seen or I should say passerines, the the perching birds that we've seen from this boat, it's actually pretty um pretty impressive. Uh some of the usually it's the more abundant things like redeyed viros, but a couple years ago we had this uh morning warbler circling the boat a few times, which um I think is still the only morning worbler I've seen in Washington County, which is just silly. Um, sometimes they even come and try to land on the boat. See if this will play. This was a common yellow throat uh last year or two years ago. We've actually started bringing um little trees with us. Um we try not to make them too big because we put them on the upper deck in the back. Uh we're not trying to block anyone's view, but we've we've learned that um especially for some of these I was going to see if I can play that again. Uh for some of these birds that are just desperately trying to find some place to land, um bringing a little spruce with us uh actually gives them a nice little bit of shelter uh rather than being so scared of trying to land on or around people. All right, with those out of the way, let's start looking at some some true pelagic species. Uh I think sheer waters are going to be a fun one to start with. Um, fortunately they they have some of the more straightforward IDs. Another one of these, you know, someone would probably tell you you shouldn't put line graphs in um in slide decks, but uh here's a fun visualization. I went into EIRD. I went into the explore tab, said show me bar charts, and entered the the four sheer waters that we would expect to see in the Gulf of Maine right now. Um, and this is uh showing us frequency, which is the the percentage of all of the checklists reported in the entire state of Maine. What percentage of those include the species that we're asking about? And you can kind of see the problem with pelagic species. You need to be in a boat. You need need to be offshore if you want to see these. So even our most common, the great sheer water, you know, only peaks at, you know, 1.7 around 1 1.8%. Because most checklists are coming from the land. Uh it would you can't do this yet, but it would be really cool to find a way to um see what the the frequency is of just offshore checklists. Uh I bet it's, you know, much higher, probably like 60 70%. Anyways, with that in mind, we can at least see how these kind of uh look relative to each other. Couple things I want to point out. Um, MX sheer water, which is going to be one of our rarer ones. Don't worry about IDs yet. We'll look at photos of all these in a minute. MX sheer water is the only one that breeds here. Uh, and so they tend to be one of the earlier ones to arrive, at least a couple weeks before some of these others. And I think this often looks a little bit overinflated because they're only nesting on two islands. Um those are the only nesting uh well I guess we can't say this anymore. They used to be the the ones in Maine used to be the only ones nesting in North America. They have been found down um amazingly down in Boston Harbor now, which is crazy. Um but that's for another a story for another time. Um, well, I'll quickly say one of the best places to see MX Sheer Water is Ravier Beach. You can just stand on River Beach and watch them come flying down the beach, circle around the apartment buildings behind you. It's the weirdest thing ever. Um, otherwise, you want to be in a boat. They look a little over inflated, but that's why they're um they're the earliest ones because they're looking for a place to nest. It's fun to note that these other ones, Corey's Great and Sudi, are generally all southern hemisphere breeders. So when we're seeing them, it's essentially their winter. Um what we would call, excuse me, what we would call the winter. Um during our winter, they're down in the southern hemisphere where it's summertime and that's when they breed. So, they're up here in their non-breeding season, which is our summer. Um, just a fun one to think about because um they're not tied to islands or anything while they're here, unlike the MS. I generally hate looking at average count in EIRD data because it gets really skewed by um well it's very biased but I do kind of like it um to show at least some of the uh again relative numbers that we kind of expect to see and I I think this will set the scene. You can see you know when the boat trips go out and and get huge numbers of of great sheer waters. It's not like they all show up this time of year. I think there's a lot of boat trips, probably all ours, that go out during um this exact time of year. What you know, talk about bias showing up in the data. Like I think all the main Ottabon trips going out counting lots of great sheer waters shows up right here. But the the quick ratio is it's um at this peak which is about a week later than now um it's about 150 great sheer waters for every um oh it's funny that city has this little peak but for for about seven quories four cities and two MS. So Mans is going to be the kind of the the key takeaway here is Mans is the rarest. Great tend to be like the most abundant. Sy and Cory's um we've usually got to do a little bit of work um for as well. So now I've been throwing all these names at you. Let's actually look at who they are. Um Great Sheer Water. I guess I'll quickly mention um depending on the age of your field guide, you might see this also called the greater sheer water. Um they changed the name u well probably over a decade ago now. Um 15 20 years ago I guess uh it was called greater sheer water but there's no such there's no lesser sheer water. Um so it didn't make sense to call it greater. It wasn't greater than anything. Um, that's why we just call it great. Now, it is great. It's uh pretty large. Some of the key ID features, it's this brownish gray above. Um, that's most important when we look at cory's in a in a minute or so. Cory's tend to be this really cooler gray. So, as we see the dorsal view, really kind of focus in on like how brownish this bird looks. You usually always get this. I I kind of see see it as two bits of white. Um you get this white band right uh at the rump at the base of the tail and then this white little cowl. It doesn't always um connect all the way across. And there's actually I meant to look this up, but I forgot until now that I'm looking at this photo. There's a way to, I think, age and maybe even sex great sheer waters based on um uh that field mark there, but you get a lot of white that kind of scoops up behind the neck. Again, not usually connecting um but you see this white and white, at least for the dorsal view, brown above, white and white. It's kind of what I'm looking for underneath. uh they have this big dark smudge on their belly. And this is a fun thing to point out with with sheer waters. And hopefully the video um plays okay in a minute. Um they they have this very kind of unique way of flying. As the name implies, going back to this photo, you can see how it's actually dragging the the tip of its wing is cutting through the water a little bit there. Living up to the name sheer water. They tend to hold their wings very stiff and rigid um very stiff shallow wing beats as as they fly around. But when they've got enough wind um they really use it to their advantage. They are truly some of the most efficient flyers um and really fun to watch because of it because they're doing a lot of gliding kind of swooping up and down. we tend to get good looks at both um that dorsal and vententral um look. So you get a nice mix of field marks like this. I wanted to show there's some really cool work being done um uh off the stagen bank um national marine sanctuary um where they are putting these transmitters on great sheer waters as they are wintering up here. Um, a lot of those birds, well, it's cell wagon bank. You're in the the southern part of the Gulf of Maine. Um, a lot of those birds come up into the Gulf and then what we're basically looking at here is their you can think of as their spring migration. It's our fall. So, this is a screenshot taken last year um from 21 weeks after they had been starting um uh uh attaching these transmitters. Um so, we're into the middle of December now, and you can see how these birds after leaving the Gulf of Maine, they're doing a ton of feeding here, but they take this trip crossing all the way across the North Atlantic. It's fun to see how most of them immediately start coming south. And it's fun to think this is what the prevailing winds are doing. That's why they're not just kind of going straight down um right down to South America. They're going to ride those prevailing winds across the North Atlantic. Then it's going to be a lot easier when you also then have like the trade winds coming across off of Africa to get down and then they do a lot of feeding here. Um these are some of their primary nesting areas. Ascension Island. Um, I feel like I always say this one wrong, but uh, Tristan Duna, um, that's where a lot of them are going to be breeding. I just think this is absolutely incredible that we have the ability to track these, um, individual birds now and see where they go. I won't remember to to show it later, but um, one of the really cool things I couldn't find the clip. Um, I I scrolled through so many Facebook posts from um from Style Wagon Bank, but they have this uh really cool animation from was that two years ago? Um, sorry. We did a a Cash's Ledge trip. I guess that was two years ago. Uh, maybe someone in the chat can correct me if you remember if you were on it. And we were really surprised um how few sheer waters we saw on that trip. Uh and there had been a hurricane that moved through the Gulf of Maine just just a few days before. And this group posted this incredible um it's a little glitchy because it's only like it only updates every couple days, but you can see as the hurricane comes up towards the Gulf of Maine, all of the sheer waters departed. every single one that they had transmitters on left of the Gulf and started this migration heading east and cleared out before the hurricane came up. And it's just so cool to think that these birds are are, you know, responding. I mean, I don't want to understate how how smart they are, but um I don't know, fascinating to me that um that's why we missed them. The hur they all cleared out ahead of the hurricane. Uh just more variation. Um one thing to note, uh you can see this uh very funny primary on this bird, the outermost primary. As I've been saying, they are here in their winter. So they're molting their feathers throughout our summer. Um so when you see them in the summertime, they tend to look kind of ratty. They might have big gaps in their wings. Here's the one primary that hasn't been replaced yet. But now here's how they should look. This is a photo from one of our pelagic trips. And look at these really crisp edging on these feathers. So all of its flight feathers, all of these uh secondaries here. Um and you can still see like a couple modeled feathers in the back, but it's molted. It's replaced almost all of these feathers. And so they tend to be really crisp and sharp looking this time of year. Zooming in on this one. I thought I would just point out a word I threw out earlier that they are tube noses or in the order prociler formies. Um tube noses is a funner word because it refers to this really cool adaptation. They have this grow this um unique uh they've got this organ basically right in this uh this lobe in front of their head. There's a lot of seabirds that have this even a number of gulls. It gives them the ability to drink salt water. Um, that gland uh basically excretes the salt water and the salt then comes oozing out of their nose, out of the the tubes and it's really gross. But sometimes when you see them like sitting on the water, especially resting like this, if you get close, you'll see them they shake their heads in this like white Well, not to be real gross. this white salty snot will just come like flying out of those tubes and it's um it's pretty funky. All right, let's see if this works. Uh here is some very lowquality video, but uh hopefully it plays at a good enough frame rate. Actually, give me one second. I'm realizing when I screen shared there's a way to optimize for video and I didn't click that. Optimize for video sharing. Let's try this now. Um let me click play. See all the gliding it does. Glide glide glide. short, shallow, choppy wingbeat. Was that visible at all? Anyone in the chat? Um, let's see. I think this is another one. One following a boat. Um, choppy wing beat. And look at this low gliding. They really take advantage of that pressure when they glide down low over the water. there. There's so much additional pressure between of the air between their wings and the water that they can use that to then get a little bit of a um uplift. Sorry it's so shaky, but this is authentic to what it's going to look like on the boat, I guess. And I would argue what I really want you to take away here is just that flight style. You know, notice it's really hard to see some of these field marks on this bird in flight, but at least if you can say like, look at how that bird's gliding. It kind of goes up then glides and comes down. If you can look at that and say, "We're talking about a sheer water." That's something you want to yell out on the boat and try to get other people um to see it. So that you know these are these are some of our target birds and even just you know being able to pick it out as a sheer water. Kind of like what I was saying earlier like we can we can work on the IDs after we you know change the course of the boat get it over towards the birds. Um oftent times we just want to get a quick ID out and say hey we've got sheer waters up at 1:00. Um let's go figure them out. All right so that's great sheer water. Now on to syar water. Um kind of a straightforward one because they're they're well named. They look like a sheer water that just flew down a chimney. They are this um this syringation overall. They do have this really cool silver lining on the underside of the wing. Um if you really want to go into some fun ID stuff, try to look up uh the short tailed sheer waters on the Pacific coast. They look nearly identical but um have a different kind of uh coloration in in the underwing. They are quite a bit smaller than um excuse me than the great sheer water. Again, great sheer water is called great sheer water because it's pretty great in size. Great personality too. But these guys tend to be smaller and they have this really tubular look to them. Um, if you can see that here, more of that silver lining, very kind of long, slender bill. They're really built quite differently. Not exactly side by side, so hard to judge size, but there's our great sheer water in the background. You can see that white that comes up the neck, kind of offsetting that dark cap. And then here's our little petite Suri. One of the cooler birds we saw. I think this was on the 2010 pelagic trip. Um, oh, and sorry, I realized uh, okay, they're still labeled. Sodi Sherwater. I lost the label on this one. Here's a not so syater. Uh, this was a really funky one that we found um, again uh, uh, 2010 or so. um it's lucistic. It it has some sort of genetic mutation where it's not producing u enough melanin to um to get the coloration in its feathers. It was a really fun ID challenge, you know, pulling up on this this bright white sheer water, but again, the smaller size and that that long narrow bill um really fits for for city. One thing I want to show that I think this bird is just, you know, it's unfortunate. Uh, one of the big problems of not producing melanin is that melanin really adds structure to feathers. Um, feathers take a lot of abuse as they um well, as they're used, as they rub up against things. And you can see that on on this bird's especially these outer primaries here. They're so worn down. and they're worn down so that you just see the shafts of these feathers. Um, think without the melanin there, they're just going to wear away. And it's a really fun example as you start looking at other white birds out in across the world. Um, almost all white birds still tend to have black in their wing tips. Think about most gulls. Most seagulls are, you know, um at least white underneath, maybe gray above, but they're going to have black in their wing tips. Think about uh snow goose, a big white bird with black wing tips. American white pelican, big white bird with black wing tips. Um and you can see what happens if you don't have black in your wing tips. They are going to wear away. Now to mix. Uh, mang shear water. Another small shear water. Um, uh, these guys really have another quite unique shape. I would argue, you know, you're probably you might mistake this for great sheer water, especially when they're sitting on the water, but they just are this uniform kind of dark. Um, we can call it black uh from the head on the nape um and across the back. Uh, let's see. Let me go in flight. We don't see the white on the rump. Like I was pointing out on our great sheer water. You don't see as might as much white come up behind the neck. They are small. Um, and one thing unique about them compared to our other Sherwaters is they have these really kind of short rounded wings. If I jump to this photo, you can kind of see they're not as like the the primaries aren't as long. it's not quite as pointy. These short rounded wings often give them um really a a unique look or shape in flight. And I've I've been on enough of these trips where uh I think m sheer water is more likely to be mistaken for um something like a razor bill, which is also going to be, you know, white below, dark above, kind of long wings and in that, you know, quick choppy wing beat. They're more likely to be mistaken for, you know, a large alid like like razor bill than they are for some of the other sheer waters. And I should also point out one of the key things to look for on m shear water is these white undertail coververts. Um, you can see that oftent times even when they're just sitting on the water looking at the undertail coververts of a m sheer water cuz the lookalike species that has never been confirmed in the Gulf of Maine or I should say in Maine waters, it's been in New Brunswick waters in the Gulf of Maine. Uh, so we know they could be here is uh, Saraso sheer water, formerly known as Ottabon sheer water. Um, and they have dark undertail coverts. Some other subtle things like the the um amount of white coming up to the eye, but I would argue if you if you see something that looks like a manx and it has dark undertale coverts, um, boom, yell. Get everyone's attention. Um, that's one of my my most wanted birds for this trip. Uh, our last sheer water or maybe second to last. um at least that I'll mention is cory's. Uh this is a species that used to be quite rare in the Gulf of Maine. Um was as I was talking about before, there's a lot of birds that we consider warm water species. And actually, let me scroll back to here real quick. Notice how MX arrives early. Then we have Sudi and great uh showing up. And then our Corey's is this blue line. It's really not until like July that they come into the Gulf of Maine. And that's less about like their migration timing and more about the water temperature here. Too cold. They don't want to be here back in May and June, but by July and certainly August, you can see this nice peak. And then, you know, seeing fewer, I guess, into September. Um, they really like warm water. Um, and guess what? It's getting warm enough here to that we're starting to see more and more. Um they're now becoming pretty much annual on our pelagic trip. Again, probably more likely to be mistaken for the great sheer water on our our uh vententral view. When you see the underside of the bird, you've got this clear white on the underwing and a clean white belly. And remember, we had the dark smudgy belly and I didn't point it out, but great sheer water had some dark markings in the wing. Um, so you tend to get this really kind of bright, clean white underneath. They're big and bulky. They have this big head and really stand out as quite contrasty. Oh, sorry. I thought I had a better dorsal photo, but I don't. I I mentioned that they um do I not? Huh? Um, they're that kind of uniform grayer color above, not as brown as we were talking about with with the great the other one we want to be on the lookout for. Um, quick shout out, I stole this from the sound approach. Um, great website with some cool um, audio and some um, visual ID stuff. This is a recent split. uh the species we know we have lots of cory sheer waters that come into the Gulf of Maine but that cory's was recently split from what we now call um scapolei or scpples sheer water. One of the best things to tell them apart is the amount of white that extends down into the primaries. Um, so if I go back here real quick, see how on our cory's trying to wiggle my mouse. The these under, excuse me, these these primary coverts, underwing primary coverts here come right down and they stop. And then the primaries are all dark. The webbing in these primaries is really dark. Um, and you see that across all of these photos. It stops right there. On scapolei, we're looking for this white that extends down into the primaries. Um, they often also have um, let's see if any of these birds show it. These dark spots here, you can often make out too. It's funny. I only see one there, but you get these dark spots out at the base of the primaries, which as this says, usually only one dark spot on scapoleles. Anyways, this is one of our our dream birds. I don't think enough people, you know, historically were paying attention. Um, but it's going to be a fun one. We It's another one that we know um come really close. One has not been confirmed in the Gulf of Maine yet. Uh, but there's there's some really good candidates out there. So, when you hear I guarantee on the boat we'll be talking about how to how to tell these apart. We're going to be trying to get lots of photos of them when they're banking. If you've got a camera on board, if you can get photos of the under wings of any of these um these sheer waters that we see, um that's what we're looking for. That's that's the easier way to tell. There's also there's all these other things about like shape and the the um how big and heavy is the bill. Um, Scapolei is supposed to be like a slightly daintier, but um, I don't think it's it's uh anything that you can actually use in the field. Uh, storm petrols. Moving along. Um, we have a couple species. Wilson's is the most abundant. Uh, Wilson's is another southern hemisphere breeder. So, they're spending their winter up here. If they're spending their winter up here, that also means that they're molting while they're here. And that's what we can kind of see in this photo. These three outermost primaries um are yet to be replaced. And then you get these nice crisp new ones. Storm petrols um especially Wilson storm petrol, I should clarify, tend to have this forging behavior where it looks like they're dancing on the water. They come splash down. A very butterfly like flight. A fun field mark. Although if you can see it from the boat, uh, you have really good eyes. Wilson Storm Petrol have yellow webbing on between their toes. Every now and then you can catch it in a photo like this, but when they're just flying around, you're you're probably not going to see it. I wanted to point out on these birds, um, the way that they're molting, they're molting the inner primaries now. So they've got those older outer primaries. The inner ones are being replaced and it makes the wings look really long. When we talk about leeches storm petrol in a minute, leeches is a very longwinged bird in comparison. And I wanted to throw this in here just to say like sometimes Wilson's can have a really longwinged look to them. Um here's another example of those bad photo, but you can see the contrast, those new feathers growing in. um haven't been sunbleached at all. They're this really nice dark color compared to those worn outer primaries. Wilson Storm Petrol is going to have this bright white rump, usually this kind of um crescent shape to it or a little C shape and then a squared off tail. And if you can see, it kind of blends in with the wave behind it, but their feet trail out behind uh the tail. kind of hard, maybe impossible to see on fastmoving birds from the boat, but it's one of those things if you see it. Um, it's pretty much diagnostic. There's a better view of that same bird molting those those primaries. Here's a convenient thing is that now that we're into September, a lot of them will have completed their mol. So, they shouldn't have that sometimes confusing look to them. But otherwise, a very small little dark bird going to have this very fluttery flight. I'll show you videos in a couple more slides. Um, with that bright white rump patch, squared off tail, and they're really a dark, super dark brown, almost black color, which is helpful when we start looking at leeches storm petrol. Incredibly long winged, especially um this this inner joint here. I'll show you some comparisons in a second. Um, a slightly cooler, almost grayer color to them. Um, the the carpel markings can look quite different, especially like almost brighter and gray on these Wilson Storm petrol, more brownish on leeches. And usually the rump is more of like a Vshape and will have some dark coloration in it. um it's not it just doesn't stand out as being quite as as prominent. There's that longer uh inner bone that carpal bone is um or whatever. Um the carpel here is longer and then you can really see that that long shape to it. People often describe these as having a more night talk like flight kind of a more bounding deep wing beats. Um, instead of being very fluttery, they tend to have these kind of more erratic movements like really kind of going left to right and really fast flyers. Another one just showing that uh especially focus in on the rump there. Like sometimes you can barely see the white on it. Um, the tail tends to be longer, the feet not trailing out beyond. Here's a little side by side comparison. And let's see, here's some videos. I hope these show up. Okay, this one, I believe, just shows the the funky butterfly like uh feeding that Wilson storm petrols do kicking off the surface there. Little short glides. This one I think is just flying with us. Notice how it's these short little fluttery flappy wing beats, not the deep bounding wing beat. I don't have good video or any video I think of of leeches. Um, which I'll work on. And sometimes uh one thing I'll I'll maybe mention more towards the end, we often will do a little chumming off the back of the boat where I'll be showing I'll be throwing um uh well all sorts of stuff. Um beef sew it with popcorn that I've been marinating in fish oil. Um we throw it off the back of the boat to form this this slick of the oil. Uh the fish oil is, you know, they all smell it and and know that there's food around. Most of these birds have incredibly sensitive senses of smell. So, that's how we can attract them in. Sorry, I'm sure this is going to be a little rocky, but these are some of the larger feeding congregations you can get. Really bouncy. RC's should be less than half of what you're seeing here on on Sunday. My honest uh best advice for leeches storm petrol. Um we're we tend to see a lot more Wilsons. Um leeches are are still feeding young at their nests right now. The the chicks haven't even fledged yet. Um so we tend to see them, you know, far offshore just doing these these foraging flights. uh they only return to their burrows under the cover of night. That's why you you'd really have to be offshore to see them. So, we'll tend to see lots of Wilsons around. Um I should say when we see them, we tend to see lots. And then there's this funny thing of I feel like a lot of people say, "Oh, I see one that looks a little bit different. Maybe it's a leeches. Maybe that one's a leeches." There's this funny bit of when you actually see a leeches, they are such a different creature. They're actually in a um whole different genus, even different family now, I think. Um that's a a cool divide of the the different um storm petrols. Check that out in your field guide. They're really a different bird. They look so similar, but they're going to act so different. And I think it's that fun one. I remember going through, you know, the first time I ever saw Leech's storm petrol. Um it's one of the like it just you'll know it when you see it. They are they are so different. Couple miscellaneous ones I wanted to throw in uh just before we do uh what is it? Skewer skewers and jaggers that we'll kind of wrap up with. Um are some of the more common things. Ganets, northern ganets we should see uh good numbers of. They can only kind of start to become confusing when you get these mixed ages. Um, they're a bird that takes what is it? Five or six years to get the real adult plumage of the creamy head, white body, and what color are the wing tips on this white bird? Uh, black. Um, so the juveniles, the young ones can be a little tricky, but even um at a at a great distance, uh, I always say the the most unique thing is that they're pointy on all ends. really pointy wing tips, really pointy bill, and there's a long pointy tail. Um, no matter how you see them, where they are, uh, that's helpful. Here's one of the toughest birds, I would argue, on the boat. Um, I think this is a video are fallops. These are all rednecked falleropes. Um, in this shot, this was from last year's trip. Um, they're really boat shy. You know, we can try to get the boat up close to them, but they tend to do this kind of constant flying away from us. And being able to pick through them and pick out red or rednecked is really difficult. Um, we mostly get rednecked. Uh, sorry. Here's a picture from the spring when they're actually easy to tell when they have the red necks. I'll show you a photo in a second where um they're just going to be gray and white. But oftentimes, why I kept this photo in here is to show where you get these little um bits of uh of seaweed of of um these little mats where there's going to be food congregating is often where we'll we'll you know see fallopes mixed in. So, anytime we're cruising and you you see especially where currents are coming together and you get little um floating mats of weed like this, looking for these absolutely tiny little shorebirds. um is good. And here's the problem. This is a super blown up photo. These are all rednecked um which tend to have kind of darker backed a lot of the red pheropes. They're a little bit larger. Um they often live up to their their old world name. If you go to Britain, they call them the gray faller. One underappreciated field mark that I always like is that rednecked fallop have these tiny thin little bills. You can, you know, see it in this still image here, but their bills are so thin that like just using your binoculars, they're often really hard to see. Red faller, which I'm now looking I don't I guess I forgot to put a photo in. Um, have thicker have these really thick based bills that actually they usually have a little bit of yellow at the base. Um, and at a distance it's this funny thing where like the the bill really stands out to me. If you're scanning through a flock and you're like, "Whoa, there's one that has like a a thick bill or you can really see it, um, investigate that, you know, look closer." Uh, as I mentioned earlier, these these are the ones that we often will find a flock like this and we'll fire off a bunch of photos and then just zoom in and start looking. So on the boat, we might just call out, you know, okay, fallops, like look through them, try to pick something out. But it can be really hard, especially when they're all, you know, moving like this. Trying to point out to you which one the red pherope is. Um, can be really hard sometimes if they're like sitting on the the edge of a group. It's a lot easier. But I know I just have to acknowledge um it's a tough really tough ID. In flight, the red pheropes do have a a a thicker um white stripe in the wing. So, without spending too much more time on these, I'd say if you want something to study up on in the next couple days, really flip through the photos in your field guide of what do red versus rednecked feropes look like in the non-breeding season or especially in flight. I mentioned earlier lesser blackback gulls just become like a super abundant bird on this trip. We used to be really happy to get one or two. Um, as I said, last year we basically lost count. We had 36 was the official count. The adults with the kind of slate back and yellow feet are are pretty easy to pick out, but I wanted to give the quick recommendation for these these juvenile birds. The birds born this summer can look a lot like herring gulls. Um, especially the, you know, American herring gulls, the young ones when they're in flight. And we tend to get them, you know, circling around the boat, really looking for when we're chumming. Um, on herring gulls, these young ones, what you can usually see in the primaries or in these flight feathers here, as you go through the primaries, it goes dark, dark, dark, dark. Then the inner part, the inner half of the primaries turn really pale grayish. And then they get dark again as you go into the secondaries close to the body. And you see that again as you go the secondaries into these pale inner primaries and dark again. Um sometimes the uh lighting can look a little funky, but on our lesser blackback gull here they have all dark flight feathers all the way across. Look how pale the rump is too. It's all, you know, a lot more white in there where you get this more marbled more dark coloration in herring gulls. Here's a fun one. I took this photo last weekend out on Mheaggan Island. Two juvenile herring gulls in the middle and in the right. And then here's a a juvenile lesser blackback gull. This more scoloped appearance. They do tend to always have this like more gray look to them versus the warmer tones of of herring gulls. An entirely dark bill as juveniles. And then they have these long wing tips. um uh they always have this kind of front hetheavy look. It's almost like the the feet are a little too like um uh far forward on it where these guys always look more balanced to me. Here's a quick flight photo comparison again of herring on the right, pale inner primaries, lesser black on the left, but those dark all the way. Um you if you feel intimidated by this I have to say the the bow trip's going to be a great chance to pick through. You can see the size comparison here too. Lesser blackbacks are um definitely a size down from herring gulls as well. There's some uncommon tube noses things like northern fulmar that we sometimes see on the trip or one of our most beautiful gulls things like blacklegged kitty wakes. But these two tend to be more winter specialties in the Gulf of Maine. So, we we might get them. Um, but I won't spend much time, especially because it's 7:40 already. Let's talk about these last two birds before we talk about the trip a little more. Jäger and Skooas. Um, some of the pirates of the sea here. Uh, parasitic joggers tend to have an earlier migration. We we um we don't get as many on this trip, but it's one to be on the lookout for. The adults uh are going to be the easiest um for any of these species. Adults that will have um unique inner tail feathers on all of them. Uh to me, parasitic jagger is is usually this very slender um almost has a more falconlike look to it. Uh I'll give you the other comparisons in a minute. Jaggers are these um kind of bullies of the sea. You'll often see them chasing after gulls, um, stealing food from them. So, you get these these fun, um, chases quite often. These not super long, but longer inner tail feathers that are that come to a fine point are good field mark for our parasitic jagger. Again, this falconlike look, these these kind of narrow, you know, narrow, long, pointy wings, kind of more slender in the body, not super deeped. um is good for parasitic pomeran a big boy. Um look at this big kind of rounded to me they always have this this more tubular deep belly um really deep set wing. Um so while I was saying that are parasitic have a more kind of falconlike look. Pomearine is is more of a gull you know big heavy gull. Um, the adults have these really cool These are the tail feathers sticking way out the back. Uh, they form these clubs. Um, oh, sorry. I thought I had a better photo of it. In breeding plumage, the adults have these these tail feathers that go back and they actually twist to form these these clubs out near the tip. So, if you get this big massive tail, um, that's going to be a nice adult pomerine. They come in a few different morphs as well. light, intermediate, and dark. These dark ones are are absolutely stunning. Um, this is where I'd say it's also really helpful to pay attention to just shape and size of them. Yeah, field marks like the tail are great. I should have mentioned I guess I don't have a good photo showing it. You tend to get a lot more white in these um in these primary shafts on these Pomearine Jaggers. Um, lot of white showing in the base of these primaries. It even shows through on the the dorsal view as we look at the top of the wing. So, a lot of white um out in there. These adults have this kind of creamy color in the nape barred on the rump, but they're big chunky boys. I love um they'll often come down and feed in the chum as well. If you can see, if you get a chance to see the legs of jaggers, um, some of them have these really cool almost bluish color legs and then the the dark color on the feet. Um, not helpful for ID, but it's just a neat thing that you can see on some of these these birds. And then some of these younger ones, this is one of the um or sorry, whatever age this is, a more intermediate one. Um really stunning, beautiful birds, I'd say. Oh, there's our dark one again. The rarest one that we don't get every year. Um I think we've had it maybe four of the, you know, 20 plus years we've been doing the trip. 20. What are we up to? 25 or 26 years the trip has run. Um, only four or five of those have we had longtailed jagger. Um, these are the the really petite little joggers. A super tiny bill. Um, if we go back, these guys have big long, you know, heavy thick um bills from the base out to the tip. Um, parasitic are are longer build, but these guys just have this super petite little bill that sticks out. Um, in flight, remember on the Pomeranian I was just mentioning how much white you see in the shafts on most longtailed jaggers are just going to show two white primary shafts. Um, sometimes you can see a little bit coming in lower there, but usually you're just going to get those two white primary shafts. This one has a little funky thing going on. on this wing. It's um it's missing the these uh inner secondary greater coverts. Um that's just why that white is showing, but just missing on that wing. You can see it's there. All those feathers still present there. All right, here's some videos. I think this one shows um a palmarine coming in and chasing after a gull. Um really watch, you know, they are so purposeful. They come flying in really fast. Um, and you'll see what a bully it is. Trying to steal some food from this and going to circle around. Out of focus, but quick. Actually chasing a parasitic there real quick. And here, I think this one's slow motion. This is when I borrowed one of my buddies cameras one year. showing long-tailed Jerger, very petite. And actually, I would almost argue on that downbeat, at least back here. Let me go back real quick. See if you can see just that that little thin white in those outer primaries. But they're really small, compact, petite. They kind of look better for, you know, they're built for migrating more than these other aggressive ones. All right, let's look at some skuas. These are um I would say our biggest targets of the trip. Uh I mentioned some some rare birds that we're hoping to see. These are the like rare but kind of expected. Um these are what we're really looking for on this trip. why why we go where we go is because we've we've really figured out how to find skas in the Gulf of Maine. Um south polar skua for a while was thought to be the the less common species in Maine. Um currently uh they seem to be more abundant. Um as the name implies it's a southern hemisphere breeder um south polar. Um so again it's their winter up here. So most of the summer records of skuas are of south polear. Great skuas are northern hemisphere breeders, but they breed on the other side of the Atlantic. So it's just postbreeding that they they come over here. And we know it's midepptember that they tend to show up in the Gulf of Maine. But I'm getting ahead of myself. South polar skua. These are big big heavy birds. Um they they I wish I had a photo of a skua next to a jagger because um they're they're closely related, but these jaggers are are excuse me, these skuas are are much bigger. Um the big bold wings and you get all this white this big white flash um in the wings that shows on the underside and on the upper on south pole. Notice the overall tones here are this really kind of gray cool tone. Uh, one thing I should mention, I thought I had more examples of this. Since South School is a southern hemisphere breeder, they've now spent the winter, their winter, our summer up here, and they've molted their feathers. One of the quicker ways to ID them is that if we see a skua and it's completed its mol, it it has nice full, you know, fully grown feathers like this. Um, well, I'll say statistically it's much more likely to be a southpar skua. The great skua, which just finished nesting, are just starting to mol right now. Here's the problem. Um, one year we found this south polar skua that was molting. Um, but notice it's still got this this kind of warm color. Uh, you can see where those inner primaries are starting to grow in, really exposing all the white in there, but a kind of more uniform gray color to it. There's a comparison of one with a herring gull. I wanted to throw this in here because like compared to you know the the Jaggers, they're big, but like some of our gulls are still pretty huge. Um it's not like they're they're you know giants out there. Um but they do have this really kind of unique you know dark shape and even at a distance you're going to catch those um those white flashes. Um now here's a south polar ska. So sitting with some great sheer waters. Um I don't quite remember what this video is. Oftentimes if they're sitting we can kind of pull the boat up on them without getting too flighty. But big size, big thick neck. There's that white flash and really a pale gray. Um, one of the biggest draws of this boat trip, um, and this will be a good segue in a minute to talk about the boat itself a little bit more, is that this is one of the few boats that we can actually stay with skuas. Um, skooas tend to be a little boat shy. Um, they don't often come in when you're feeding with chum. Um, I don't really know why, but uh, we often have to chase them down. The boat we're taking is a 120 foot jet powered catamaran that does 30 knots almost instantly. So when we see a skua, the the captain knows to turn and basically chase it down. Um most other pelagic trips that you're going to go on don't have the the horsepower to be able to keep up with skoo long. Sometimes we can stay with them for a couple minutes. Uh and that's the ideal setup. Here is great skua. I would argue this is our our our biggest target. Um it's become more difficult lately, but I'll show you why in a second. Um instead of that uniform gray color of the south pole, these tend to have this really warm almost golden color. Um I've heard people almost liken them to to, you know, some of the same field marks that you'd look for on a golden eagle, the golden color up here by the nape. Um, but these little speckles that they often have like along the body on the back. Notice it it is molting. Generally, if it's molting, it's more likely to be a great Here's that speckly look. This is a fun one. Countering myself. Again, we've encountered enough of these that I I figured I'd show the the outliers. Um, younger great skuas aren't going to be molting right now. they would have just grown in all their feathers before leaving um the breeding ground. So, if we see a great ska that's not actively molting um it's more likely to be a younger bird. And here was one um one of my favorites of all the trips we've had. We got we were able to get the boat right up to it and um there you can really see that gorgeous speckling. It's a absolutely massive heavy bill on great skua. Um, they're amazing. Here's the problem. Um, I just I went into EIRD. I said, "Show me maps of Great Skooa." 2015 was a really good year for them. Um, and you can kind of see the the whole path of where, you know, this is where we take the boat. This is where we encounter them. 2016, still out here in the mouth of the Bay of Funday. Um, a few records in 2017, scattered in 2018. These are really rare birds. um uh a code three ABA bird. I think they still are. Um but here's the problem. Around 2020, um still being seen, 2021, 2022, no great skewers reported anywhere in the Gulf of Maine. And that was the same time. Oh, did I lose the date off here? Um, since the outbreak of H5N1, uh, better known as aven influenza in 2021, um, a lot of these the seabirds nesting in the UK. Here's the numbers. Um, H5N1 caused a loss of 75% of the Great Skua population and 25% decline in the northern ganets in these UK nesting colonies. And that's where our great the great skas are coming from. So to think that if we're only getting a portion of the bird, you know, a very small portion of the great skis nesting over there that are coming over into the Gulf of Maine, um, and we've now lost 75% of that population, there's not many great skas left to come into the Gulf of Maine. So since 2022, um, there have only been two records um, even kind of near the Gulf of Maine. one just off of Nantucket last year. Actually, I have the dates here. One out on the um continental shelf. Um Liam Waters is one of the people tagging the the sheer waters that I was mentioning earlier. And then there was this one BBC trip in December. um December of last year that had a a great ska and that gave me a lot of excitement because it at least means that we know um you know so we've basically had these two records one in in 23 and then this one in 2025 um maybe they're starting to come back hopefully. The last bird I want to mention uh is this insane probably insane bird that was photographed um depending on who you talk to. It was it was in the Gulf of Maine on a boat trip that was looking in New Hampshire waters. Um New Hampshire is a very funny state where they have very little pelagic waters because most people use nearest point of land to decide what water you're in. Um, New Hampshire birders say that they get uh from the border straight out. So, they count a lot of birds um that I would argue are actually in Maine. That's a story for another time. So, this bird was photographed um what was it just over the weekend? Just a few days ago. Um notice it is molting right now. Oh, it's molting these inner primaries, which more which is a better timing for um a bird that would have uh just come up here. Um it has these really warm almost reddish tones to it. We haven't talked about that with either south polar or great. And it has this dark capped look to it, which we haven't talked about with south polar or great. Um, this bird checks basically all the field marks for Chilean skua, uh, which has never been confirmed, uh, in North American waters. And the fact that there's, you know, potentially one flying around in the Gulf of Maine right now, um, a little south of where we're going to go, but boy, that's exciting. This is what seabirding is all about. You never know what could show up when or where. Um, sorry that this this was a photo Cam Johnson got. I meant to put credit on here. It's just a screenshot from an album that was shared. But, um, that's exciting. Uh, there's a lot of questions about what do Chilean and brown skua hybrids look like? Because it could be a little bit warmer in here, but that's a story for another time. So, I want I was shooting to wrap up by eight. So, with the last I think I have seven more slides. Um, here's roughly what we're going to do. Um, this was a track uh back from 2018, but this is this tends to be what we do on most of our trips. Um, especially since we'll have good weather, we can basically go wherever we want. We've some years when it's a little choppy, um depending on the swells, we have to stay closer in shore, which is not the point of a pelagic, but we do the best we can. Um we'll probably go straight out. We'll go to areas called um excuse me, the ballpark. Then we usually start going past um the bumps and it's these Graham Manan Banks. The we often go towards the the south end and work our way north before we come back. Um, and it all depends on the amount of time we have and and what we encounter along the way. It's worth pointing out if you can see Machiasal Island up here. We used to deliberately go all the way to Machiasal Island, throw Chum off the boat, and that's where we would find like a lesser blackback gull and then take the the quick trip back along the coast. Um, now we're encountering, you know, 30 plus lesser blackbacks just as they're migrating out here. So, we tend to skip Machias Seal Island now. So, that'll be roughly what we'll aim to do. Um, if you've never been on the boat before, this is a quick view. I mentioned before it's a jet powered catamaran, so this is what it's like off the back of the boat. Um, hopefully you don't have to spend too much time back there. If you are feeling sick, that's the place to go. Um, here's one of the problems of how awesome the boat is. Uh, oh, you can't quite see. There's a little speck right up here. There we go. Zooming in. That's one of the skas that we're chasing down. Again, not many boats that I know of are capable of this. But this is how when we get on a good bird, why we spend so much money to get on this giant boat that goes really fast. Um, and oftent times we're just motoring underway. Um, and it is super windy when you're going 30 knots and it can be really hard to just use your binoculars, keep your hats on. Um, and this was another one I wanted to mention is like sometimes when we're underway, it's just um, this is where like if a leech of storm petrol goes zipping by, you know, we'll probably still announce it over the the intercom just trying to get people to pay attention. Um, but some of those birds we just we can't turn the boat around to go find. Um, anytime we get good feeding activity, we're going to do our best to to stop the boat, start chumming, get get food in the water, um, and start trying to to draw birds into us. These are lots of ganets with all sorts of um, Atlantic white-sided dolphins. This is what we love to see. And oftent times we're just trying we're motoring around looking for big bits of activity like this. We'll talk more on the boat about how we'll use like the clock system. We'll call stuff out at, you know, um 12:00 being straight ahead. Um 3:00 off to the right. Uh it's it's always difficult to talk about birds when they're we we tend to say like are they sitting on the water? Are they flying above the horizon? They're at 1:00 going to two. We do use um a handful of the guides will all have radios so we can try to be, you know, calling stuff out all around the boat. Those radios then need to go up to um whoever is narrating from the top deck. And so there's often a little, you know, it takes a little delay. So, you might hear people on the bow yelling about something, but we're trying to radio, you know, radio it in so that everyone can learn. Um, I will say a lot of people tend to like just try to grab a spot and stay there the entire boat trip, especially on the top deck. Um, it's a great 360 degree view, but sometimes, you know, if there's a really tall person next to you or something like that, get up, move around. Um, and maybe encourage them to as well. Uh, I'll make a a key point. Um, the boat holds, I think, close to 250 people and we cap it around um 100 plus uh a dozen guides or so. Um, we also give some free spots to some some kids, but um uh there'll be we'll be at less than half the capacity of the boat intentionally and we sell it out at that number so that you guys have plenty of space to move around, swing your cameras around. Um, but we still need to be able to pay for the boat. So, we often get the feedback that people say, "Wow, there's so many people on board." There will be 100 people on board, but um that means that less than half the seats are are full. So, my best recommendation, get plenty of sleep. Um avoid alcohol. This is always funny to me. Um the number of people that I see seasick and when, you know, I'll try to be sympathetic talking to them on the back of the boat, I'm like, "Oh, you know, you get plenty of sleep last night." People say, "No, oh, we we were in Bar Harbor, so we stayed up and we went to Lampac and we, you know, Lamp's a fun bar in town there." But, um, uh, seasickness medicine, I put the giant asterisk here to say, um, uh, don't take medical advice from me. Do go talk to your doctor. Do whatever you need to do. The quick thing I will say, which is what works for me, do whatever works for you. I don't take I don't like taking seasickness medicine, but less drowsy Dramamine works for me and it works best if I take it the night before and the morning of. Then it doesn't hit my system quite as hard, but it's still going to give me those those good effects. Um, think about doing that if if you don't take a lot of um seasickness medicine. Um, and if you are taking it when you're on the boat, it's too late. uh you're going to see it come up in 10 minutes. Um and stay engaged. Don't go inside and sit uh inside the boat until we're getting on, you know, birds. Hang out on the deck, talk to people, look for birds, be scanning on the horizon. I um I don't want this to sound mean, but like I can tell within the first five minutes of a boat trip who's going to get sick because they go inside. They're the ones who are like asking if anyone has seasickness medicine. They still, you know, they look like they were drinking the night before. Like staying engaged and doing stuff, talking to people, looking for birds is the best thing you can do. Real quick, the weather looks great. Uh we often are dodging storms. Um, this is the forecast for uh right now you can only get Sunday at 8:00 a.m. We'll be departing earlier than that, but 2 to three foot seas where we're going and a nice breeze um uh breeze from the south, which we really like because that's going to be blowing birds closer to shore. Um, a lot of these birds like those shear waters want to be flying around. if it's dead calm, they just sit on the water and they're really hard to find. They only like flying around when they have wind to take advantage of. So, this is like I couldn't have picked a better setup for Sunday. It is going to be chilly. Um, you know, 59 degrees is what they're predicting uh with partial um uh cover. So, wear lots of sunscreen. Uh 59 degrees might sound, you know, kind of warm, but when you add in that you're on a boat going 30 knots, it's going to be chilly. Um dress in layers. Again, there's tons of space inside. I bring a bag that has um extra jackets. Um uh a winter hat. Gloves I think are one of the most underappreciated thing to have on a on the boat. Um, so I recommend that as well. And hey, it's 8:05. Um, let's end it there. Uh, yeah, Tom and I see asking in the chat, um, am I going on the September 26th Cash and Sledge trip, too? I do plan on being there. Um, that's not an official main Ottabon trip. Zack Cliver, um, uh, with Fluke's Whale Tours is going to be, uh, doing that, but he invited me to come point out birds and keep E-I-ird list. So, I'm planning