After our eight days of landings in the Lesser Antilles, it was good to be back at sea on the Saga Caribbean Calypso cruise. Every day on our return crossing, we were on deck from dawn to dusk, apart from breaks for breakfast & lunch.
We had little reward for the nine hours we put in on deck on the first day out at sea. During the day, I saw: one distant Tropicbird sp., two Masked Boobies, a few Mirrorwing Flying Fish, some unidentified large Flying Fish (that were probably the same species), a Smurf, but no Cetaceans.
There was a four metre swell and I thought that might have been the cause of the complete lack of Cetaceans on the first day, as even the largest of Whales can disappear in a four metre swell. However, Charlotte announced on the noticeboard that today was "National Cetacean Snorkelling Day". Perhaps this was influenced by the Captain's daily lunchtime briefing to the ship, with the weather, significant birthdays and stating it was "National Sticky Pudding Day" or something equally fictitious.
It was a good job we were on deck at dawn on the second morning, as there was a most amazing sky that morning.
Our second day at sea, was very similar to the first. Despite another nine hours or so on deck, I only saw: the first two Cory's Shearwaters of our return crossing, a White-tailed Tropicbird that came past without stopping, a single Masked Booby, a few more Mirrorwing Flying Fish and a Smurf. It was another day of scant reward for the effort we put in.
I thought our third day at sea would be quieter than the first two. We were too far out from the Caribbean to continue to see some of the Caribbean Seabirds and I was just expecting a few more Cory's Shearwaters. We had already passed out of range of the Magnificent Frigatebirds and my predictions were correct, as there were no more Boobies or Tropicbirds, with the Cory's Shearwater tally increased to five.
What I wasn't expected to see were some small Pterodroma Petrels, which all passed the ship at a few hundred metres range. No surprise there, as most Pterodromas I've seen fly past, rather than are attracted to, the ships I've been on. The first two appeared together after a long quiet spell and they were quite confusing. One was clearly a Pterodroma Petrel with light-medium brown upperparts, light-medium brown underparts with a large white belly and a dark underwing with a white under patch on it. It was trailed by a second all-dark individual. My initial reaction to the all-dark individual was maybe it's a Sooty Shearwater, so I ignored it and focused on the white-bellied Pterodroma Petrel. I was confident it was a small Pterodroma Petrel that I didn't recognise. A quick check against photos online confirmed the white-bellied Pterodroma Petrel was my first Trindade Petrel. It wasn't on my radar for the trip, but eBird confirmed that they were likely to be in this area of the Atlantic outside of the breeding season. I was frustrated that I hadn't managed to get any photos of it. I tried, but didn't manage to get the camera on exactly the right bit of the sea. I also realised I had forgotten that Trindade Petrel had an all-dark phase and the individual I had largely ignored was an all-dark Trindade Petrel. In hindsight, that made a lot more sense than a much larger and different-shaped Sooty Shearwater.
Less than an hour later, another Pterodroma Petrel appeared. It was even whiter than the previous white-bellied Trindade Petrel. This time I quickly lifted the camera and got some photos, despite it being equally distant. I had a quick look at the photos. They confirmed this was clearly a Pterodroma Petrel with light-medium grey upperparts, a whitish underwing with a black M on it. This one was a different species and it definitely, wasn't any of the Western Palearctic Pterodroma Petrels, a Trindade Petrel or was a Soft-plumaged Petrel. That only left Black-capped Petrel or the really rare Bermuda Petrel as possibilities. I assumed it was a Black-capped Petrel, but decided I needed to check the book and photos on line later.
By the end of the day, I had seen three Trindade Petrels: one all-dark and two white-bellied individuals. I had also seen two of the largely white under-winged Pterodroma Petrels with the black M. But, I only managed to photograph one of them. The photos show what is clearly a Pterodroma Petrel, with light-medium grey upperparts and a whitish underwing with a black M on it that continues into the axillaries. It clearly wasn't a Black-capped Petrel, as it didn't have the distinctive black cap, pale collar and pale rump. It equally wasn't a Trindade Petrel as it was different to the white-bellied and all-dark Trindade Petrels I had seen that day. On the face of it, it looked superficially similar to Bermuda Petrel, but while the photos show they have the black M, the black stops before the armpit and their axillaries are white. Plus, this rare Pterodroma Petrel should be on the Bermuda breeding grounds now, albeit these could have been non-breeding immatures. But there was enough to suggest that it wasn't a Bermuda Petrel. The only Seabird field guide I had with me: the excellent "Oceanic Birds of the World" photo guide by Howell & Zufelt, but all that did was to eliminate all the potential Pterodromas around the world. I worried over the photos and looked online and I was none the wiser. Terry sent the photos to a couple of Cornish Birders he knew, but they came back with Fea's Petrel or Zino's Petrel. I was one hundred percent confident it wasn't one of those species. In the end, I grouped the photos up and emailed Bob Flood for some help. I didn't get a reply and as I hadn't seen anything from Bob for a while on twitter, I came to the conclusion he was probably away at sea. I would just have to wait until I heard from Bob or I got home with access to more books.
I was none the wiser for the rest of the trip about these two mystery Pterodroma Petrels, despite more online researching. When I got home I looked at the excellent "North Atlantic Seabirds: Pterodroma Petrels" by Bob Flood and Ashley Fisher. The main text and photos for Trindade Petrel reinforces the two colour morphs of Trindade Petrel that we had seen. The book describes the light morph, which is what I'm referring to in this Blog Post as the white-bellied morph. Then by chance, I looked at the rest of the book and found a photo on page 32 of an even whiter morph Trindade Petrel, which looked very similar to the individual I photographed. It was mentioned in a section showing how some species can have light and dark morphs. But, the main Trindade Petrel text didn't reference this photo or show other photos of this morph. Finally, I came to the conclusion that the two mystery Pterodroma Petrels were most likely Trindade Petrels and there are three morphs of the species: an all-dark morph; the white-bellied morph; a third morph that I had photographed, which the books don't mention. It was made all the more confusing by the normal term for the white-bellied morph being called the light morph, thus suggesting their couldn't be an even whiter morph. I think I had an answer in my mind. But it was still speculation in my mind, based upon one very grainy photo on page 32 of Bob's Pterodroma book.
Finally, Bob returned from his long sea trip and he had chance to respond. He confirmed it was "a Trindade Petrel, there is more variation than currently shown in literature and he attached a photo of a similar individual taken on Trindade Island". In the end I was glad that Bob had been at sea, as it gave me the chance to have a thorough read of the literature I had, to find that photo on page 32 and to come to the conclusion it was likely to be a Trindade Petrel. But I was also really glad to get the confirmation from Bob, as I couldn't find anything to one hundred percent confirm my suspicions. That's the great thing about Birding, is the post observation investigations and learning, coupled with the all-important photos from the field. So, the final tally for the day was five Trindade Petrels: one all-dark individual, two white-bellied individuals and two of these much whiter individuals. Birding would be boring, if all we had to do was to read a number of the side of a Bird, like train-spotters can do with serial numbers on a train carriage.
When faced with Seabirds like this confusing Trindade Petrel, there is always a dilemma. When the Seabird is going away and I am struggling to figure it out with the bins, do I keep watching it and hope it will turn or do I lift the camera. On some occasions, I've tried the camera and failed to get it to focus correctly or for me to pick up the Seabird in the right part of the sea. But sometimes when I'm struggling to see that fine detail to confirm the identification, then the camera works and provides the evidence to get to a correct identification. Fortunately, this was one of the occasions when the camera option worked. Three other occasions when the camera worked really well were:
- A pod of Strap-tooth Beaked Whales on the Atlantic Odyssey. I was photographing a surfaced identifiable individual, when another popped it's beak out of the water and provided photos of the diagnostic beak of this cracking Beaked Whale.
When we left the Caribbean, we were expecting to be back at sea for five days, with the Azores as our next destination. That day, the Captain announced there was a big storm that was scheduled to hit the Azores close to our visit. Consequently, he had replanned the route and we would be spending seven full days at sea. Our next landing would be La Coruna, in North West Spain instead. We had experiencing four metre swells since leaving the Caribbean and we didn't need even rougher seas on the Azores route. A couple of different passengers said this was their third Saga cruise, where they had failed to reach the Azores. Unfortunately, I would have no chance of seeing my first Azores Bullfinches and Azores Chaffinches.
Day four at sea from the Caribbean to North West Spain was a very quiet and uneventful day, despite the ORCA team spending another nine hours of so surveying. My only wildlife sightings were a final white-bellied Trindade Petrel and a single Cory's Shearwater during the morning. I also saw my first Cetacean since leaving the Caribbean, but it was a frustratingly brief sighting of a probable Beaked Whale sp. During one of my off duty rotations, I went to explore the deck below the top deck. There was some interesting art work, but it wasn't a great observation deck as the roof of the bridge obscured too much of the forward view. After taking a few photos, I decided the top deck was the better viewing location.
Towards late afternoon, the temperature suddenly dropped and it got rougher. We must have been on the edge of the rougher weather heading for the Azores that afternoon.