Florida Pelagic - November 13th 2011 (1 Viewer)

Michael Brothers has set the date for another pelagic out of New Smyrna Beach. Follow this link for more details.

Hope to be able to go on this one.

Carlos

csanchez7 said:

Hope to be able to go on this one.

Carlos

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Wish I could but we'll be at Archbold for a Jay Watch event.

still places left I believe. This should be a great trip with many exciting birds that are normally hard to see from land. The bacon sandwiches are great as well.:t:

I tried so hard to get the day off for this one. It would be a great companion trip to the Fall Owl Fest at the Avian Reconditioning Center in Apopka on the 12th.
Oneof these days!

Andy Wraithmell said:

still places left I believe. This should be a great trip with many exciting birds that are normally hard to see from land. The bacon sandwiches are great as well.:t:

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This might be a heretical for me to say, but what if I don't like eating pork?

Do I just get the bread?

Carlos

csanchez7 said:

This might be a heretical for me to say, but what if I don't like eating pork?

Do I just get the bread?

Carlos

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8-P

Nov 13 2011 Pelagic Trip - Report

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Subject: Pelagic Trip out of Ponce de Leon Inlet. Volusia Co.
From: Michael Brothers
Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2011 22:01:37 -0500

Sunday morning, 11/13, 48 brave souls boarded the Pastime Princess and ventured on another offshore adventure out of Ponce de Leon Inlet, Volusia County. We headed just offshore to search the gulls following the nearby shrimp boats. We set out a chum slick and soon had hundreds of gulls following our boat. Just a couple of miles offshore we found a Parasitic Jaeger chasing some Laughing Gulls. We headed out offshore and had an occasional Cory's Shearwater and Great Shearwater, but little else. Eventually a Great Shearwater came up right behind the boat and settled on the water giving everyone an exceptional up-close opportunity to see this beautiful bird.

We had a long period with few birds until at about 48 miles offshore, inside the west edge of the Gulf Stream we started to find shearwaters on the move. A constant stream of Cory's and Great Shearwaters approached us from behind and also a Brown Booby. Soon we found our first large group of about 60 birds - Cory's and Great Shearwaters feeding frantically in patches of Sargassum weed. In the middle of the group of shearwaters was an immature Brown Booby. Nearby, a Pomarine Jaeger flew off the water. We met group after group for the next 12 miles. We found another Pomarine Jaeger and 2 more Brown Booby. We found about 400 shearwaters in total over the next 12 miles.

Species List
Cory's Shearwater 350
Great Shearwater 50
Probable Audubon's Shearwater 1
Brown Booby 4
Pomarine Jaeger 4
Parasitic Jaeger 2
Common Tern 30
Sandwich Tern
Royal Tern
Herring Gull
Ring-billed Gull
Laughing Gull
Lesser Black-backed Gull
American Coot 5 (including the rare Pelagic Coot, the Near-shore Coot, the
Inlet Coot, and the nearly extinct Sargassum Coot)
Several small flocks of unidentified ducks

Additional species from dock to jetty — Inshore species
Double-crested Cormorant
Great Black-backed Gull
Reddish Egret
Great Egret
Snowy Egret
Great Blue Heron
Green Heron
Black-crowned Night-Heron
Yellow-crowned Night-Heron
Semipalmated Plover
Sanderling
Ruddy Turnstone
Greater Yellowlegs
Willet
Osprey

It was a beautiful trip.

Michael

Michael Brothers
Marine Science Center
Ponce Inlet, FL
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No lifers for me on this trip but I finally got the Brown Booby in my USA and Florida lists.
Dalcio

Video

Some scenes I videoed during the trip can be seen here.