by Alvaro Jaramillo
Tubenoses… sounds like a 80s New Wave band? Or we could
fancy it up and call them the Tubinares, now they sound upscale, perhaps European?
Well, they can be European, they can also be from the south, the very far
south. I am talking Antarctica and the southern oceans! These guys are the
seabirds with tubes for their noses, not gulls, terns, gannets, penguins,
cormorants, puffins or any other of the myriad of seabirds, but the “top shelf”
seabirds, the group that includes the petrels, albatrosses, storm-petrels,
fulmars, and shearwaters.
What is so special about the tubes you might ask,
well it is unique in birds, and gives them a certain look when up close. The
tubes may be there to partially have better aim at finding food, as many of the
species use smell as a way to find it, but it also may be to forcefully eject
salt water as they get that all important salt balance right. These two
characteristics get at the fact that these are ocean going birds, and for all
of them the ocean is their life, land is only a place to keep your eggs dry.
They only come to land to nest, and at no other time; they eat, sleep, preen,
rest, migrate, and any other activity you can think of, on water. Some of the
bigger species have several years of immaturity before they are ready to come
to breed, and for these many years they roam the oceans learning to know the
sea, to be a seabird.
Black-capped Petrel
There are
seabirds, and then there are seabirders. To say that seabirders have a romance
with the tubenoses is an understatement; it is a great passion, and sometimes
borderline obsession that develops. You see, when you see a petrel arcing high
up over the waves, in a stiff wind, as if nothing mattered, as if nothing can
stop it, you realize that as a human you are so limited. That while freedom and
ability to do something amazing is within our reach, nothing we can do can ever
be as effortless, poetic and poignant as watching a shearwater, petrel, or
albatross out on the open ocean. Tubenoses are not chock full of color like a
tanager, but they have nice lines, and they handle their environment with
grace, style and mastery. I will stop there though and clarify, that yup I am
one of these people who loves seabirds. So it was with great happiness that
last year my friend George Armistead upon his hiring as events coordinator at
the ABA mentioned some magic words to me: Hatteras, tubenoses, teach, next
year! Whoa, what? The ABA was bringing back the Institute for Field Ornithology
(IFO), workshops and this was going to be the first. Three pelagic trips and
land birding near Cape Hatteras, to explore and learn about the tubenoses of
the North Atlantic. Was I in? George had me at pelagic….
So there we
were, plan in place, with Nate Swick to offer backup and before you knew it the
IFO was full! The North Atlantic Tubenoses IFO happened in early June and it
was a heck of a good time. In Norfolk, VA the early arrivals met up for drinks
the eve of the tour, we met new faces, re-acquainted with friends, and planned
the next day’s activities and exchanged birding stories of course. The
questions came up, on what seabirds had been seen recently, what was the
weather looking like, the latter question of particular significance as a
tropical storm had gone over just the previous day. Not a huge storm, but
enough to drive a few Magnficent Frigatebirds, and Brown Boobies to shore.
Folks also asked me how many times I had been out here on these boats, and some
were a tad surprised when I said none!
Great Shearwater
Yep, I was a Hatteras virgin. Although I
have spent tons of time leading my own pelagics in California, Chile and have
traveled in the southern Atlantic, I had never made it to Hatteras and how
sweet it was. Apart from the fact that I would be as excited and eager to see
even the commonest birds on this trip, like others who had never been out
there, there was a longer term reason for my involvement here. Next year George
and I are doing it all again, but in my home turf of California, so keep
looking out for those announcements and hop aboard quick as this year’s was
maxed out quickly.
One thing I
had not realized was that Hatteras is not close to any place. You really have
to want to get there, and make an effort. For the birder this is not an issue,
as the birding along the way is super. We stopped at various spots, including
Bodie Island, Oregon Inlet, and Pea Island. The birding was good, great looks
at various terns, shorebirds, and surprisingly out of season Common Eider and
American Pipit! Ironically the pipit may have been the rarest bird of the trip,
as they should not be anywhere near here during this time of year. There were
Lesser Black-backed Gulls, some messy looking ones, along with very nice Least
Terns, Black Skimmers and American Oystercatchers, all birds I see as
emblematic for the Atlantic/Gulf coasts. For the westerners extra exciting were
the American Black Ducks, White Ibis and common species such as Northern
Cardinal, Blue Grosbeak and Eastern Towhee to name a few. But this was icing,
as we had come for tubenoses, not just regular noses!
Wilson's Storm-Petrels
Our first
encounter with tubenoses was not in the field, but indoors! Part of what makes
an IFO different than a birding tour, is that there are classroom sessions to
give background, context and preparatory information to help understand and
identify what we see in the field. This makes for a richer, and well-rounded
birding experience and you do come out knowing a lot more than when you came
in. This is particularly useful on pelagic trips, as often you do not have much
time to get on the birds, and you can’t chase them down or call them in as you
might on land. In addition sometimes there is trepidation about pelagics,
particularly for beginner or intermediate birders, so it was helpful for some
to have this additional information to add a certain comfort level to these
ocean going outings. Also to our favor of getting ample experience with these
seabirds was that we had booked a total of three pelagic trips with Brian
Patteson on the Stormy Petrel II out of Hatteras. This was a lot of time at
sea, and part of the key to success out there is time!
To sum it
up we had some great birding offshore. The first trip was a great one with a
wide variety of sightings, a nice species list and pretty nice weather. The
second day was flatter and dead calm, almost windless but not as good for birds
save for some better views of some species observed on day one, but
additionally some sightings of marine mammals and Loggerhead Sea Turtle! The
final trip was at first an iffy one, weather was windy and nasty the day
previous and it was unclear if it was going to be messy out there. Brian looked
at his weather resources and decided that very same morning that it was a go!
We lucked out as the weather was really favorable and we saw some superb birds
out there, this was the best day yet. It wasn’t luck really; this was Brian’s
ample experience out there which we were lucky to have on our side.
Loggerhead Sea Turtle
Having had
a lot of experience in the Pacific, including Easter Island, I had seen the
“real” Herald Petrel out there many times. But I had never seen the Atlantic
version which often is separated as the “Trindade Petrel.” I told George, if I
see that sucker I will write up a proposal to the AOU committees to consider
separating the two species based on the recent and historical data we have on
these birds. Well on day three a quick fly by of a dark morph Trindade Petrel
had me partly wishing I had not said anything, but elated on the other hand as
it was a lifer for me! So I stuck to my promise, and now this proposal is going
through the South American committee and will be sent to the North American
committee soon, so we can resolve this taxonomic issue.
Staying with the taxonomic issue I had a sort
of double lifer involving one species! Serious, I did. Having never been to
this part of the ocean the Black-capped Petrel was a new one for me, and we saw
this local specialty on all three of our trips. Some years ago Brian Patteson
and Steve Howell noted that this species comes in a paler white-necked version,
and a darker necked/faced version. They also saw that the wing molt, which is
timed according to the breeding season, occurred at a slightly different time
in these two types suggesting that they bred at slightly different times. Hmmm,
all very peculiar, and suggestive that there is more to learn about
Black-capped Petrels. Well just recently a new paper was published looking at
the genetics of Black-capped Petrels and they confirm that the two types differ
genetically by an appreciable margin, and the suggestion is that there may in
fact be two species in the Black-capped Petrel. If so, one of these may be
unnamed, so a new species to science! Great for us was that on our second and
third day we saw the darker version of the Black-capped Petrel, so if there are
two species, we saw both!! So that is how you get a sort of double lifer.
Bridled Tern
They were
memorable trips, with awesome birds, and a great crew of birders, and real crew
with Brian and Kate Sutherland as first mate, chum-master! Over the three trips
we had amazing views of some nice seabirds, including a Great Shearwater that
we could have hand fed, Bridled Terns that went by so close you could
practically smell them. A surfing Bridled Tern that we all though looked
hysterical hanging ten (or actually hanging 8) on its longboard. There were
Audubon’s Shearwaters, a distant Manx Shearwater, Pomarine Jaeger, Cory’s
Shearwaters, as well as the above mentioned petrels. The other set of regional
specialties are the storm-petrels, and we saw more than our fair share of Wilson’s
Storm-Petrels behind the boat. Some were amazingly close and came in to the joy
of the photographers on board. The Band-rumped Storm-Petrel was rarer but
observed on each of the trips, and some were pretty nice views. By the molt
pattern and overall look, we decided we saw the possible split, “Grant’s
Storm-Petrel.” There is a complicated and unresolved situation of potentially
several different species involved in what we currently call the Band-rumped
Storm-Petrel.
"Grant's" Band-rumped Storm-Petrel
The birds are what we came for, but we were thrilled by the
flying fish, the Long-finned Pilot Whales, offshore Bottlenose Dolphin,
Atlantic Spotted Dolphin and some distance beaked whales which we never were
able to see well unfortunately. Birds, whales, turtles, fish, fried fish…it was
quite the trip! We made new friends, re-acquainted with old ones and just had a
fun time while learning and enjoying one of nature’s wonders, the Gulf
Stream!
The California
version of this IFO will happen next year in August, and it promises to be
birdy and educational. We will have the classroom sessions as well as three
pelagics, perhaps two from Half Moon Bay and one from Monterey Bay. This year
the IFO filled fast, so keep that in mind when the official announcement is made.
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