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Still NEED PARTICIPANTS For UPCOMING PELAGIC TRIPS; Recent Sightings



Dear Carolinabirders,

Many of you are aware that we have a pelagic trip on the Miss Hatteras
scheduled to go out from Oregon Inlet (departing Wanchese) this weekend,
February 5(6). There is still time to sign up for this trip if you
haven't already done so. In fact, we STILL NEED ABOUT SIX MORE
PARTICIPANTS BY WEDNESDAY in order to run the trip. We also need several
more participants to run the pelagic trip from Hatteras on Feb. 19(20).
Our trip from Virginia Beach on Jan. 29 was a productive one despite
rough seas in the morning and bitterly cold temperatures. While we
didn't see any Great Skuas, it is worth noting that we didn't see but a
couple of fishing trawlers offshore and the number of large gulls was
fairly low. We did, however see plenty of gannets and kittiwakes. Our
count for Black-legged Kittiwake was 276 and that may have been a
hundred low, as it is hard to keep tabs on birds that appear and
disappear in the swarm of birds following our chum line. We saw a fair
number of Razorbills- at least 23, and we also had a couple of Puffins
and two sightings of Dovekie, but we were definitely handicapped by
rough seas in spotting the alcids. Other pelagic seabirds of note were
about 20 Red Phalaropes, 2 Northern Fulmars, and one Manx Sheawater.

Because a band of cold water currently extends south to Cape Hatteras, I
believe that we should have a good chance to see all of these species
and hopefully also Great Skua on our upcoming trips from the Outer
Banks. We also have the advantage of deeper water closer to shore off
the Outer Banks, so we should be in productive waters for even more time
than we were off Virginia Beach last Saturday.

For more information about these trips, and other pelagic trips that we
will be offering in 2000, please check out our website-
http://www.patteson.com/, or give me a call at (252) 986-1363.

Brian Patteson
Hatteras, NC
Brian@Patteson.com