Day 4: The Luck of the Irish

southern Atlantic Ocean

Monday 23 December 2019 60 °F

Yesterday was one of my favorite days of seabirding — EVER! I met up with the six Irish birders and we birded almost the entire day from various vantage points on our ship, the Coral Princess, which is still chugging south as I write this.

Immediately, we noticed a wealth of my life bird SOUTHERN GIANT PETRELS following the wake up the ship (probably under the impression that we were an oversized fishing boat).

One NORTHERN GIANT PETREL (note the red tip of the beak) was also mixed in. Too cool!

WHITE-CHINNED PETRELS were also mixed in with the Giant Petrels in large numbers:

Then, someone noticed a more strangely-plunged albatross and sure enough it was an endangered species: the SOOTY ALBATROSS! Amazing, amazing life bird!!!

Its relative, a (juvenile) WANDERING ALBATROSS was also present. I LOVE Wandering Albatrosses — they have the largest wingspan of any bird!

In addition to a single unphotographed YELLOW-NOSED, a fourth albatross species, the BLACK-BROWED ALBATROSS, was also present in large numbers.

Smaller seabirds were also present in numbers, including this SOFT-PLUMAGED PETREL, a life bird for me:

And endangered ATLANTIC PETRELS:

Bird life was not the only wildlife observed from the ship yesterday, though! This Fin Whale gave absolutely incredible views:

As did an unphotographed Humpback Whale, but I did get its blowhole plume:

The Dusky Dolphins were cooperative though:

My favorite mammal seen yesterday by far was the Southern Right Whale Dolphin, of which many lept from the Atlantic waters, giving positively incredible views.

Here is one of the dolphins pictured with a SOFT-PLUMAGED PETREL:

And here is the petrel with a BLACK-BROWED ALBATROSS for size comparison.

As the day persisted, seabird activity decreased and we noticed a lot of seabirds resting on the water, including more SOFT-PLUMAGED PETRELS:

SOFT-PLUMAGED & WHITE CHINNED PETRELS & GREAT SHEARWATER:

Here they are in a different order:

Then, one of the Irish birders sang out “Spectacled Petrel!” and we all scrambled to get a view of this unique, endangered species. This is not your run-of-the-mill petrel; in the right light, bright white spectacles can be seen on the birds face, and even though it was at quite a distance, I still managed to snap a couple of diagnostic photos. Life bird!!!

WOW — what a day! Bird-of-the-day to the Spectacled Petrel with runner-up to the Soft-plumaged Petrel! Thanks so much to my new friends for letting me tag along with them when seawatching! Stay tuned — it just gets better and better!

Good birding,
Henry
World Life List: 1038 species (3 life birds yesterday)

Posted by skwclar 08:09 Archived in USA