Leaving from Plymouth on a full boat with naturalist "Krill" Carson, we headed straight out to where the whales were feeding, somewhat north of Provincetown on Stellwagon bank.
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| Gurnett Light Plymouth |
Along the way, we soon noticed the lack of Wilson's storm-petrels. Our usual spot for first sightings, just off Gurnett Light, was void of any petrels.
It was not until we had reached the west side of the bank, before one was spotted. And then only be a few individuals. We only had 2-3 for the day. A number which was the lowest since 2008.
That aside, once we entered the area where the whales, mostly Humpback ~ 30 were feeding,
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| Humpback whale feeding on Sandlance |
we enjoyed a wonderful show of interaction between the whales, gulls and shearwaters. By far, Cory's Shearwater was the most numerous of the four species of shearwater seen this day,
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| Cory's Shearwater |
followed by Great Shearwater.
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| Great and Cory's shearwaters |
Also seen were a fair number of Sooty Shearwaters.
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| Sooty Shearwater |
The fourth and final species of shearwater seen was a distinct and lone Manx shearwater, spotted by eagle eye Glenn d'Entremont. Aside from one subadult Northern Gannet, none of the other possible sea specialties were noted.
In addition to the usual whale watching boats, we also saw the last of the American whaling ships. Now used for watching only.
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| Unidentified schooner and Charles W. Morgan |
While heading back into Plymouth, we were lucky to see four Black Skimmers at the end of Plymouth beach.
As always, I have a hard time putting together numbers for all the birds that were seen. There are so many distractions with surfacing and diving whales, birds moving from one spot to another and times the boat spinning like a top to get the best whale viewing advantage.
Here are my numbers. Others on the trip may have more definitive information.
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| Mike Emmons |
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