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Offshore birding on headboat 4-21



Hi C'birders,
Since the headboat was weathered out last Friday I took the trip today.
The boat was the New Inlet Princess out of Murrells Inlet, (Capt. Dick's
Marina), Georgetown County, SC.  It was a super day with calm seas
during the morning and slightly bigger swells in the afternoon.  It
began auspiciously  even before the boat left the dock as a Greater
White-fronted Goose paddled by. Besides the goose here are the other
birds found once we passed the one mile marker.
Common Loon-perhaps about 20 seen from just offshore out to about 35
miles.
Shearwater or Gadfly Petrel-two different sightings that may have
involved one or two birds.  Both sightings involved birds flying low
over the water short glides punctuated by deep flapping. Both times the
birds were uniform dark gray or black dorsally and had a conspicuous
white oval rump patch much more conspicous than most Greater Shearwater
but there was no white collar or noticeable black cap.  Could not get a
look at the ventral pattern or get a handle on the size of the bill.
Any ideas?  Neither sighting lasted all that long maybe 10 seconds or
so.
Wilson's Storm Petrel-8  These birds appeared small with rather short
pointed wings, oval rump patch, end of tail rather even not notched or
forked.  That said I hoped to confirm Wilson's with toes sticking out
beyond the tail and lots of pattering over the water.  These birds
didn't do that they wandered erratically side to side briefly touching
the water without dangling the legs and I never saw any toes sticking
out beyond the tail,  No more than three were seen at one time and they
would get up to about 30 feet from the stern of the boat and then drift
back.  One bird did show a strong diagonal gold brown bar across the
dorsal surface of the mid wings.
N. Gannet-some from the entrance to the Inlet to 50+ miles out.  Most
were adults
Double-crested Cormorant-1 crossed the path of the boat about 25 miles
out.
Phalarope sp-2 birds in basic plumage sleeping on the water.
Pomarine Jaeger-This species put on quite a show for me
a total of 9 different birds most stayed with the boat from 10AM till we
left the fishing grounds at 3PM.
Here are their descriptions
Birds 1 & 2 were light phase breeding plumaged adults with long tails
with wider rounded ends and a conspicous breast band.
#3 was as above except the breast band was incomplete
#4 was as above except there was no breast band
#5 was a dark phase adult in breeding plumage
#6 & 7 was as 1 and 2 but had slightly shorter tails
#8 & 9 had very short blunt tail projections and brown streaked
vermiculations on the flanks. subadult?
All birds were seen up close and I had 7 birds in view at one time with
six in the water and one flying in circles all around the boat.
Gulls-were also with the boat during the whole time fishing.  At least
four different Herring Gulls an adult and three different plumaged
immatures and two immature ring-billed Gulls.  I only saw a jaeger go
after a gull once to steal some bait it had captured.  Otherwise they
would sit on the water facing the boat and both gulls and jaegers would
be relatively close together and tolerant of each other.
When the boat moved the gulls and jaegers would lag behind but soon
catch up when the boat set anchor at another spot.
A real fun day. Incidentally the maximum Pomarine Jaegers seen in one
day in SC waters as listed in Post and Gauthraux was six off Charleston
on April 21, 1985. How about that?
Common Tern-longer reddish bill, dark wedge to under wing primaries.
Arctic Tern-1 short orangy/dusky bill, uniform sandy gray color to
dorsal surface all the way to the wingtip. Very narrow black edging to
upper surface primary tips

Jack Peachey
Conway, SC
.