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Offshore birding - Charleston, SC



Saturday (9-20), a bunch of us took a headboat trip on the Thunderstar.  It was a below average day (Isabel?), but we did OK thanks to lots of lookouts, chumming with Menhaden oil and a friendly Captain who jinked towards birds.  We spent all of our (non-transit) time along the 300-400 foot dropoff 48-50 miles east-southeast of Charleston.  We saw:

Black-capped Petrel - 1
Cory's Shearwater - 60+
Wilson's Storm-Petrel - 6
Red Phalarope - 2
Red-necked Phalarope - 8
Parasitic Jaeger - 4
Jaeger Species - 4
Bridled Tern - 2
Sooty Tern - 8 (2 imm.)
Sandwich Tern - 6
Caspian Tern - 28 (roughly)
Royal Tern - 40 (roughly)
Forster's Tern - 60 (roughly)
Common Tern - 25 (roughly)
Black Tern - 80 (roughly)
Least Tern - 2
Black Skimmer - 18

4 Loggerhead Sea Turtles
1 Hammerhead Shark circling the boat (8-9 footer)
Atlantic Flying Fish
Spotted Dolphin - 8
Atlantic Bottlenose Dolphin - couple of dozen

Notably absent was Audubon's Shearwater.  Several times Cory's Shearwaters came in close to eat the "released" undersize fish whose swim bladders kept them on the surface.  After one stop, we motored over and cruised right beside a sitting flock of Cory's. 

We got great long looks at a Parasitic Jaeger that cruised beside the boat 50 yards out.  It was on its way to persecute a flock of Black Terns we were heading towards.  When we finally got close to the Terns, the Jaeger accelerated and busted up the flock in impressive fashion. I wonder if the Jeager was using us as a blind to sneak up on the Terns.

Nathan Dias - Charleston, SC