Last month, we ran our annual Bar Harbor Pelagic trip with great success! Most years we are trying to thread the needle between hurricanes and get this trip to run, but calm conditions made this the easiest trips in memory. We departed from Bar Harbor in the early morning, aboard the Friendship V (a fast and smooth 112 foot a jet-powered catamaran) that quickly got us offshore and looking for our targets. Based on recent reports, we decided to check ‘the Ballpark’ and then head east to Northeast Bank south of Grand Manan Island.
We tallied decent numbers of phalaropes along the way, mostly Red-necked but a few Red Phalaropes were picked up by sharp-eyed observers. 10 Pomarine Jaegers and a single Parasitic Jaeger brought excitement in both their piratic behavior (chasing gulls and stealing fish) and challenging identification – this trip is a great opportunity to study the variable plumages of these birds that are so rarely seen from shore. The peak excitement is when “SKUA!!!” is yelled from the deck, and this year we were treated to TWO South Polar Skuas at Northeast Bank. These birds are often boat shy, but these two provided some of the most cooperative views we’ve seen on this trip, making repeated flights right up to and around the boat as we were chumming and enjoying the diversity of the sea. Another highlight was picking up Black-legged Kittiwakes and Northern Fulmars (five of each), two species we tend to see more of later in the season but not annually on this trip.
Non-avian Highlights included an Ocean Sunfish (Mola mola):
and mouth-feeding Humpback whales:
Many thanks to Jan Pierson and Zack Klyver for narrating throughout the trip, and Captain Toby for navigating the Friendship V around.
An eBird Trip Report with a full species list and photos from participants is available here: ebird.org/tripreport/571679
