PORT O'CONNOR
PELAGIC August 8, 1998 Aboard the Chip XI
Subject: August 8 Pelagic
Date: Sun, 9 Aug 1998 17:14:13
From: Dwight Peake
Our pelagic luck this year finally changed for the better yesterday.
It took quite a while-the seas had been flat for the entire past week
until the first cold front in over two months passed over and kicked
up the seas. We started the day with seas too rough to head directly
south to our goal of reaching the edge of the warm core eddy sitting
off of the coast from Corpus to SPI-at least everyone on board stayed
dry. By 11 am the seas
began to calm and we headed south-we had to pass through what I call
the "Dead Sea"-the area we normally target off of Port O'Connor has
only crystal clear featureless water and no birds where we usually
have many. This area is a low sea surface height area on the altimeter
map: http://www-ccar.colorado.edu/research/gom/html/gom_nrt.html, then
on the page with Blended TOPEX/Poseidon and ERS-2 Altimeter Data, choose
Latest sea surface height anomaly map. At this point I was very worried t
hat we could not get to the eddy edge before we had to turn back-on the
July 20 trip we went to N27deg 3min and didn't get to the edge of it-if
we did not get to the eddy edge, I was sure the day would be a bust!
Around 1 pm, our trusty Captain, Gary Geisel, started suggesting that we
needed to turn north soon so I asked him to turn southwest while I plotted
our course back. We found that Colt 45, an offshore seamound was too far.
We headed south a few minutes longer we ran into our first Sooty Tern flock!
We then came the most spectacular display of fish schools breaking the
surface that I have ever witness-the schools were breaking from horizon
to horizon and the Sooty Terns and Audubon's Shearwaters were in hot
pursuit. Unfortunately, we had to speed past several Whale sharks in the
schools because we spotted a white Sterna tern in with the Sooties. We
followed the flock from school to school watching this bird-it had a short
black bill, extensively white forehead, wedge shaped eye mask, white
secondaries, and translucent primaries consistent with a first
summer/second calendar year bird-if accepted, the third state record-2
out of the 3 on these pelagic trips-of Arctic Tern!
If I could I would watch the Sooty Tern spectacle every day. We did have
to head home, however, and almost immediately after turning towards Port
O'Connor 2 Masked Boobies flew by giving all great looks. Of course,
Forest Roland had decided that nobody was watching enough for high
flying birds, so he took it upon himself to do it-shortly thereafter,
he found a high flying large white bird. It had long wings with long
black outer primaries, a wedge shaped tail, and flew strong and fast
with a wing beat appearing to use mainly the outer wing area-WOW! the
second TROPICBIRD (probable Red-billed) seen on these trips.
The ride home on calm, following seas was wonderful. We were escorted
by several pods of Atlantic Spotted Dolphins. We even saw the fabled
"green flash" at sunset!
By the way, the July 20 trip apparently missed the eddy edge by about
10 nautical miles. Also, these trips are so far offshore that we are
out of cell phone range, Chuck.
The September 5 Port O'Connor trip will be the last from Port O'Connor
and the last public pelagic trip scheduled for a Saturday for some time
to come. We need many more people to sign-up if it is to go.
The September 20-23 36 hour pelagic from Freeport will travel to the eddy
edge area also and will have a lot more time available to work the area.
This trip, on a very comfortable boat, has several spaces open.
I am working hard to arrange trips on boats which area more comfortable
than the trusty but spartan Chip XI that is taking pelagic birders to
great birds for its 5th and last season. The last two trips this year
need participants who want to see great birds-unfortunately, if these
trips don't get enough participants, don't expect any public pelagic
trips to be available next year.
Species seen August 8: 8 hours of one fretful trip organizer
