Last Saturday I joined the Brookline Bird club for their annual June Pelagic trip to the Nantucket Shoals, about 20-30 miles east of Chatham. The trip certainly didn’t start out on a high note…fairly heavy fog was present for the first couple hours of the trip. About two hours into the trip we had our first tease of the morning- a Skua appeared at the edge of the fog only to disappear right back into the soupy mess. A little while later the fog began to slowly lift and things began to really pick up.
The crew put out a chum slick once it started to clear and not long after the Storm-Petrels and Shearwaters started to appear in really good numbers.
The chum slick also brought in a very obliging Northern Fulmar. This bird made several passes around the boat and offered the photographers several opportunities to come away with a decent shot or two. We did encounter a few more Fulmars during the day including a dark morph, but the first one was the star of the Fulmar show.
The one memorable thing about this trip, at least to me was everyone on board was able to get really good looks at the majority of the birds that were encountered. The leaders worked very well together making sure everyone got on the birds.
Below is the official list compiled by Naeem Yusuff and the trip map provided by Steve Mirick
Scott
Common Loon 15
Northern Fulmar 2-3
Cory's Shearwater 12
Great Shearwater 376
Sooty Shearwater 1,303
Manx Shearwater 2
Wilson's Storm-Petrel 300
Leach's Storm-Petrel 8
Northern Gannet 1
Laughing Gull 2
Herring Gull 210
Great Black-backed Gull 225
Common Tern 4
skua sp. 1
Pomarine Jaeger 1
Parasitic Jaeger 1
Common Murre1
Great Shearwater![]()
Northern Fulmar-Light morph.![]()
Northern Fulmar![]()
Parasitic Jaeger![]()
Pomarine Jaeger- both Jaegers put on a nice show.![]()
Pomarine Jaeger![]()
Sooty Shearwater![]()
Wilson's Storm- Petrel![]()
South Monomoy Island
Gray Seals on South Monomoy.
