|
| ||
| ||
| Here is a report written by Bob Wallace: Yesterday Mike "One Eye" Brothers, Roberto "Toe" Torres, Trey "Trey" Mitchell and Andy "the Graduate" Bankert joined Bob Wallace on his 31' Contender "The Banging Bitch", and ran 105 nm off of Ponce Inlet in search of tuna and pterodromas. Andy was at 325 in his attempt to break David Simpson's FL Big Year total of 365, and needed some pelagic species for his list. Weather conditions were perfect, after 3 weeks of 15-30 knot winds, with a light W wind following us out, and then a light SE breeze creating following seas on the way home, which is about as good as it could get. Not much air to get the shearwaters aloft, but much more comfortable than banging into a head sea both directions! We released a baby Hawksbill from the Ponce Marine Institute at the western edge of the Gulf Stream, to help our turtle karma. Not long afterwards we found the first pelagics, a Leach's and then a Band-rumped Storm Petrel, and the first Black-capped Petrel of the day, at about 60 nm offshore. Once we passed the eastern edge of the stream at 78nm off, we found the first flock of Sooty Terns on radar, with a Greater and Audubons Shearwater underneath. We kept working east, finding several more Black-caps, in the 85-95nm range, and eventually found a large flock of Sooties, with 2 Brown Noddies, an Audubons and a BCPE, over tuna. We landed 2 Skipjack, but no Yellowfins. Perhaps the very strong winds from the West over the last week had pushed the yellowfins out much deeper, but we were unable to find them. There were not many flocks at all compared to earlier in May, or my experience in June and July from previous years. On our run home, we saw a Band-rump at about 60nm, and put out a chum slick, and within 5 minutes had Band-rumps, Wilsons and Leach's in the slick. What is the density of these species in apparently a vacant ocean, that they appear so quickly with the scent of the oil? We encountered 1 more BRSP at only 20nm offshore, and a late juvenile Gannet. Andy added 4 year birds, but we never found a Tropicbird for him. Species totals: Black-capped Petrel - 6 Audubon's Shearwater - 5 Greater Shearwater - 1 Leach's Storm-Petrel - 2 Wilson's Storm-Petrel - 6 Band-rumped Storm-Petrel - 8 Gannet - 1 Sooty Tern - 150+ Bridled Tern - 6 Brown Noddy - 2 | ||
| Post Comment |
| Entry 19 of 60 |
| Last Page | Next Page |