Ultimate Pelagics Biscay 2008 (1 Viewer)

Charlie Rowney · Aug 28, 2008

Dominique

You mention in one of your posts that observations from the UP boat were "way closer". Is that because the boat was smaller (and the deck appreciably lower) or just because it approached stuff more closely.

I only ask because I've been on, I think, 6 PoB trips. I've enjoyed all of them and will doubtless do more but one problem I have with PoB is it's size. I know this adds to its stability in Biscay's potentially big seas and the observation height at around 100ft must hugely increase the chances of detecting stuff but the views of birds (not so much cetaceans) are to me often very unsatisfactory in that they look so damn far off.

At the risk (no - certainty) of appearing a prat to other birders, I have a confession to make - while my bins are a treasured possession I've always hated using a scope. Just doesn't feel right. Using a scope is analagous to using a condom - all very sensible but kind of takes away from the experience. For this reason I've always loved the Scillonian pelagics (8 trips to date). Scopes are pretty much a waste of time on the Scillonian (as arguably is looking for big cetaceans) but if you connect with say great shearwaters on the Scillonian the views can be just crippling. Sorry folks if this is a bit off thread.

Charlie

draycotebirding · Aug 28, 2008

Dominique Verbelen said:
maybe good to know that all clients of the bob up trip 2008 got a bird list, cetecean list and sightings map on the last day of the trip

these data weren 't final as far as birds were concerned but had all ceteceans sightings

kind regards,

dominique

We got a list posted under our cabin door each morning on the first UP trip for sightings the previous day and everyone was very surprised to see what we had all missed :eek!:

John

Hugh Harrop · Aug 28, 2008

Dominique Verbelen said:
maybe good to know that all clients of the bob up trip 2008 got a bird list, cetecean list and sightings map on the last day of the trip

Yes, its standard practice now for us to log all of our sightings on to our onboard laptop and generate a map to show exactly where we saw all of the cetaceans. Its great to be able to show our clients this almost immediately after the sightings. Some of the maps can be seen on our page at

http://www.companyofwhales.co.uk/html/news/news_fr.htm

and an exmaple is attached.

Time restraints don't allows us to do it for the birds but at the end of the season we will have maps prepared for Little Sheearwater (for French rarities committee and an ongoing paper that I am working on and Balearic Shearwater (essential given the species current profile and sad demise). we are also GPSing any rafts of large shearwaters (Cory's and Greats) also for an ongoing paper. so if you have the GPs for the Little shears maybe you could share it with us.

Cheers

HH

Dominique Verbelen · Aug 28, 2008

hi charlie,

all boats used on the 3 up bob trips are way smaller than the gigantic pride of bilbao

as a consequence, bird observations are invariably better

as hugh states correctly: it will be damn hard to id a wilsons from the pob but it proved pretty easy last year from the up

other +: the up approaches all actively fishing vessels that it encounters (2007: 4, 2008: sadly enough: 1)

the bird activity around such trawlers are super

moreover, there's the chumming (pretty succesfull in 2007, hardly succesfull in 2008)

combine all this and it isn 't hard to understand why the pob isn 't the best possible opportunity to see seabirds (as small as a storm petrel) very well

having said this: i truly enjoyed all of my 7 pob trips, was on board with counts of 3000+ great shearwaters, have seen several photographed littles, adored the wrynecks on board and had a lot of fun observing the behaviour of people who have lived on an island a millenium too long ;-)

kind regards,

dominique

Touche · Aug 28, 2008

Hi Hugh

I look forward to your shearwater paper - do you have a journal in mind?
From your experience can you recommend the best date period / BoB sector for Little Shear sightings? The tinkers have eluded me to date!

Cheers, Rob.

Hugh Harrop · Aug 28, 2008

Dominique Verbelen said:
had a lot of fun observing the behaviour of people who have lived on an island a millenium too long ;-)

Not Monkey Island I hope ;-)

Hugh Harrop · Aug 28, 2008

Touche said:
Hi Hugh

I look forward to your shearwater paper - do you have a journal in mind?
From your experience can you recommend the best date period / BoB sector for Little Shear sightings? The tinkers have eluded me to date!

Cheers, Rob.

It will probabaly be published in Seabird, published by the Seabird Group. Best time for Little Shear? A tricky one! I have seen them from mid July - mid September in all weathers and in the northern and southern Bay. This probabaly doesn't help but they really are unpredictable.I've seen in excess of 50 out there now but knowing when or where we will see the next is as unpredictable as seabirding gets.

Cheers

HH

Touche · Aug 28, 2008

Hugh - thanks.

The unpredictability and anticipation is what makes seabirding so much fun!

Dominique Verbelen · Aug 28, 2008

hi hugh,

i will see if i can get any gsp readings on the place where we saw littles

the last record we documented photographically from the pob was submitted to the french rarities committee (no idea if it got accepted or not but the pictures clearly show nothing else than a little shearwater)

and yep! i saw the first little shear ever in belgium (from the jetty in ostend) making this my best blokker (present ranking on the belgian twithers list: no° 2!, having missed a lesser grey shrike a few weeks ago when herping in france :-(

kind regards,

dominique

Hugh Harrop · Aug 29, 2008

See forwarded message below. The time and date of the observation below would appear to refer to the morning of Sunday 23 August - when COW were onboard along with the 30 or so lads from the Cardiff Bird Club and a fair number of other birders. Would they like to shed any knowledge / comments on this record? The same observers also seem to have seen 6 Long-tailed Skuas mid-Bay on 16 Aug which is an exceptional record - LT Skuas remain extremely rare in the Bay.

----- Forwarded Message ----
From: José Luis Copete <[email protected]>
To: westpalbirds 'at' yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thursday, 28 August, 2008 17:13:28
Subject: [WestPalBirds] Fea's/Desertas/Zino's Petrel 45 miles off Ouessant

Dear all,

Gorka Ocio, who organizes cetacean and seabird observations from the ferry
which crosses from Bilbao to Portsmouth (Pride of Bilbao), commented
yesterday in the Spanish birdlist rarebirdspain that last weekend was
observed an unidentified Fea’s/Desertas/ Zino’s Petrel approximately 45 miles
after crossing Ouessant cap, inside the English Channel.

The lucky observers of this petrel were the mentioned Gorka Ocio together
with François Richir, Brian Lox and Quentin Given.

It’s also worth of mention that also during August have been already
observed 2 other Pterodroma petrels from Galicia (NW Spain), from Estaca de
Bares cap, by Ricardo Hevia and others.

José Luis Copete

Terrassa, Spain

Hugh Harrop · Aug 29, 2008

From BDRPs site: BDRP & Ultimate Pelagics Cruise Report: MV Princess Danae 16 - 21 August 2008

Fin Whale Balaenoptera physalus 40, Large Rorqual spp 103, Minke Whale Balaenoptera acutorostrata 1, Sperm Whale Physeter macrocephalus 1, Cuvier's Beaked Whale Ziphius cavirostris 4, Sowerby's Beaked Whale Mesoplodon bidens 1, Beaked Whale spp 4, Long-Finned Pilot Whale Globicephala melas 53, Bottlenose Dolphin Tursiops truncatus 29, Striped Dolphin Stenella coeruleoalba 122, Common Dolphin Delphinus delphis Dolphin spp 44, Harbour Porpoise Phocoena phocoena 11, Unidentified Whale spp 2.

Basking Shark Cetorhinus maximus 3, Ocean Sunfish Mola mola 122, Tuna spp 2, Turtle spp 1

NB. A comprehensive list of bird sightings on this trip will follow shortly.

Dominique Verbelen · Aug 29, 2008

hi there,

just to mention that on the ultimate pelagic trip to the bay of biscay, we also had 9 long-tailed skuas

6 of the did put up a great show close to the boat and were all photographed

pics of some will be included in the photo gallery that will be opened on monday (hopefully)

dominique

Dominique Verbelen · Aug 29, 2008

hi there,

today i collected most of the birdlists i wanted in order to finalise a trip's total

as there were several good groups of birders spread all over the ship, i did add up some of the totals that were sent in, taken into account who counted where and when

i tried to reject all dodgy records even though this is extremly hard when you haven 't seen the birds yourself so i guess my knowlegde of the birders on board was kind of a guideline to include certain data and or not

all in all, the data i got didn 't surprise at all (the only thing i hadn 't heard of whilst on board was an auk)

of course the counts of the real seawatchers were way higher than those that sent in a rough estimate (huge differences for species like gannet or fulmar) but as for the goodies (sabine's, great shears, little shears, balearic shears, cory's, grey pahalorpes, puffin, wilson's, long-tailed skuas, ...) all numbers are pretty much the same

birdwise, i saw all species myself but only missed out on the wilson's so i can't comment on that myself

so far, i got pics of great, cory's, balearic, sabine's, long-tailed, sooty, manx and all the common stuff)

as far as i am aware, no pics were taken of little shear or wilson's but that isn't very surprising

in total, 5.264 birds were counted, and 51 species were identified (gannet being the most numerous one with 2.663 inds

kind regards,

dominique

Touche · Aug 30, 2008

Hi Hugh

That's super - thanks for taking the time to compile the data.

Will have to pay attention on the return leg up the BoB, then!

Rob

Touche · Sep 1, 2008

Crikey, all very Carry On Seabirding!

Hugh Harrop · Sep 1, 2008

Poor Amy mis-read Rock en Seine, Paris as Rock on Sabine's Biscay....thats why she cancelled!

No Sid James?!

Dominique Verbelen · Sep 1, 2008

hi there,

the 2 pics of the sowerby's are indeed not on any of these galleries as these will be posted on the natuurpunt website first

all records of beakies have been gps'd by the bdrp team and i take it for granted that they know what to do with these records (i don 't have gps readings on none of the beaked whale records so i 'm afraid i am not able to help on this one)

as far as i remember, it has never been said that there were pics of wilson's

i know of many birds that have been seen and identified but of which there are no pictures so i find hugh's comment on the wilson's a bit strange (how many of the cow's little shearwaters have been photographed so far? since little shear is a bit bigger than a wilson's i assume you have been able to photograph them all ;-) and has hugh pics of all the 1000's of wilson's he has seen in his lifetime?

on the website of diederik d'hert, there are both pics of 'kleine jager' and 'kleinste jager' and as far as i am concerned they are all correctly labbeled

i guess the confusion is not an id mistake but a language problem caused by dave's faulty knowledge of dutch (kleine jager is NOT long-tailed skua, as he mentions in his mail, but arctic skua so he came to the same id as us, which isn' t very difficult since it's a rather typical bird)

kind regards,

dominique

BobTag · Sep 1, 2008

Hugh Harrop said:
Some half decent pix there - the birds and cets at least - and yes, that certainly is a dark morph Arctic.

Dominique - did anybody get any pictures of the Sowerby's beaked Whale as unless I'm going blind I could not find any on the links above. And any pix of Wilson's? Surely if they are being seen and ID'd then somebody must have an image of something that at least resembles one!

Quite right, there are some good pics there, especially those by Diederik Dhert.

Not only can I find no Sowerby's nor Wilson's photos, after a first quick go through I can't see any Little/Macaro photos images, as was led to expect. Come on chaps, share the photos of the good stuff!

In amongst the Carry-On images, I also couldn't find any images of a Baked Alaska Parade this year

Dominique Verbelen · Sep 1, 2008

hi bob,

read my last comment: pics of sowerby's will follow, pics of wilson's not (as there are none)

i was mistaken on what you meant by macaros and thought that yoy referred to macronesian (= balearic/mediterranean or hwo you may call them)

there are some record shots of these in diederik's gallery

as far as i am aware of, there's only one record shot of a little

i asked the photographer to mail it but haven 't received it yet

kind regards,

dominique

Hugh Harrop · Sep 1, 2008

Dominique Verbelen said:
i know of many birds that have been seen and identified but of which there are no pictures so i find hugh's comment on the wilson's a bit strange (how many of the cow's little shearwaters have been photographed so far? since little shear is a bit bigger than a wilson's i assume you have been able to photograph them all ;-) and has hugh pics of all the 1000's of wilson's he has seen in his lifetime?

With so many photographers onboard All I did was ask ;-)

I have many pix of Wilson's thankyou but having only ever seen one in Biscay I didn't photograph it. I also have some dot shots of Little Shears which would certainly not win any awards...

Let us know when the Sowerby's pix are uploaded and we'll all try and get our heads around the language barriers - which is, admittedly, one thing us Brits are not famous for!

And any Gull-billed Tern pix in circulation? Did you see them and if so, what ages were the birds Dominique?

HH

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