Seabirds during a sailing trip crossing the Atlantic sea (1 Viewer)

Hi all seabird enthusiasts,

As a result of my huge sailing interest I have the great opportunity to sail over the Atlantic sea this spring which will be very exciting. We will begin in the West Indies where we will spend approximately 2 weeks in the Caribbean sea before we across and plan to reach the Azores in the beginning of May after that we hope to arrive in Porto, Portugal around the 10:th of May.

Trip planning:
5 -28 mars: Caribbean Sea
29 – 25 April: Sailing through Bermuda to the Azores

28/4 – 11/5: Sailing to Porto in Portugal.

I have a burning interest for birds and especially seabirds and will of course bring my binoculars with me and scan the sea so often as I can. Seeing that I am out on deck on all of my noon sleeping time I will get many hours being on the lookout.
Even if I have a quite big experience of all our European seabird passengers I do not really know what birds I can expect on my trip during that time of the year.

Here are those birds I think I have a quite good chance to spot:
Cory´s Shearwater
Great Shearwater
Manx Shearwater
Audubon´s Shearwater
Little Shearwater
Sooty Shearwater
Wilson´s Storm-petrel
Leach´s Storm-petrel


Here is my dream species:
Black-capped petrel
Bulwer`s Petrel
White-faced petrel
Atlantic yellow-nosed Albatross
Black-browed Albatross
Trinidad petrel
Fea´s Petrel
Band-rumped storm-petrel

What chance do I have to see all those species? –and bear in mind that I will watch really hard for a long time. Which species of seabirds is possible, shall I add something on the list?

What do you think about the sea watching around in this area? Do you think we I cross any particularly good area for sea birds?

Would be glad to hear what you say I am glad for any kind of tips and advice




Kind regards
// Martin Berg, Stockholm Sweden

I can't comment on the locale but that is exciting! It sounds like you are literally sailing? Hopefully in a smaller vessel than a cruise ship. I noticed in the cruises I've been on that the birds don't come very close to the ship; maybe that's different on smaller vessels. You didn't really ask about equipment, but the distance made binoculars alone very difficult as a sole tool and I had to rely on taking shots and hopefully identifying after the fact. Next time, I might take a small spotter and a monopod. Or maybe a 12x50 and monopod or even image stabilized binoculars.

The ship is a three-mast schooner. From earlier experience the sea birds in European waters come fairly close but it depend what kind of bird it is. Shearwaters just fly by maybe just check what´s going on. Northern fulmars, European Storm-petrels and Northern Gannet use to come close to very close. Seeing that we are just sailing the marine animals and birds are not frighten by the sound of boat.
A problem is that it is hard to do birding from deck. Opposite to land the boat is always rocking and it might be hard to follow the birds when they disappear in the troughs. So I only use binoculars 43x10 which is fine for me. If the weather is calm it might possible to use a scope.

Hi,
Tomorrow I go, I will be gone until the 10:th of May.

Have a wonderful time Martin

Bon voyage

D

martinberg said:

Which species of seabirds is possible, shall I add something on the list?

Click to expand...

This may be too late, but I would also think you would have a good chance for tropicbirds, frigatebirds, and boobies, though I have no experience with such long sea voyages.

Good luck!
Jim

Albatrosses are very much a long shot but you should add plenty to your base list.

Steve

Martin, good luck and good birding

Here is the link to the submission form for all your pelagic records.

http://www.rnbws.org.uk/activities.php

I will be looking forward to seeing your sightings

Mark C.