March 16-24 2012, the atlantic (mid-atlantic pelagics revisited with apologies to captain brian)

Well, who knew? It was with a sense of intrigue that we left New York on a blustery Friday night and headed out towards Southampton (almost via Lisbon as it turned out)

March 17 - heading east (as we would until Thursday night). Many small flocks of auk with a few flock of phalarope type birds flying away from the boat. First lesson, stuff ain't easy to ID on this scale! The first Cory's of the trip, 3 Fulmar and 2 Gannet and a number of all dark, small birds seen briefly, presumably Petrels. 2 adults and a 1st w of both GBB and (american) Herring gulls even though we were a few hundred miles out to sea.
Sunday 18 March - a few small 'flappy' shearwater with white face seen on the closest birds-presumably Audubon's? Probably a second Cory's in the distance. A small flock of auk type birds were watched flying low over the sea (c8 birds) before towering up to around 20 feet about waves
Monday 19 March - checking out the Sargasso weed, one clump turned out to be a passing sea turtle lazily flapping passed the ship ! A distant citation breached, a medium(!) sized whale. Many distant shearwaters looking dark and white as they banked (maybe just bad views of Cory's )
Tuesday 20 March- still heading east at 90 degrees. At least 9 Cory's today and I started to get a chance to watch for extended periods as the birds flew closer to the ship. A party of 3 were circling and maybe feeding, the others were generally working in the same direction as the ship and traveling much faster than our 21 odd knots. Additional on large dark bird low over the water(but very distant) and a couple more small,all-dark birds
Wednesday 21 March
Our closest approach tithe Azores,c.75 north of the islands, found a 3rd W Atlantis Yellow-legged Gull (almost laughing gull colour) pass by the cabin balcony early in the day and another, or maybe adult, later. At least 15 Cory's today, without too much effort. One bird showed a distinct dark border to the inner lesser coverts on the underwing, sometimes described as diagnostic of the Atlantic ssp. All the others seen clearly seemed to show a lean white area ob the under wing, sometimes described as that shown by the Mediterranean ssp. More research required....
Thursday 22 March - we turned north-east around midnight and no more Cory's were seen! I was rescues from a birdless day by a solitary Barn Swallow mid-morning
Friday 23 March - as we skirted Biscay on our last day at sea we started to run into a few Gannet (6 seen) and a small flock of auk (probably Puffin). A dolphin breached alongside the ship but was not seen again.

All in all, many more birds than I feared and some really good views of Cory's in their element

Saturday 24 March - in Southampton the usual town-birds were seen, a sparrow hawk near the station was a good find
Monday 26 March (European) Herring Gull commotion over Chichester was found to be caused by a red kite gliding over
Tuesday 27 March - a couple of ring-necked parakeets over the M25 near the A3 junction

March 10 2012 - more cold ducks

The limited area of clear water attracted a couple of ferruginous duck to the mallard but also up to 8 shelduck and 19 ruddy shelduck. A few Caspian Gull also mixed in

March 9th - first russian tick - Dendrocopos medius OR NOT...

Ok so I did take this pic but this morning I saw, in my little park, a smallish woodpecker. Firstly I heard drumming (if I could figure out how I would include the recording here!) and eventually tracked the bird down. Eventually and despite having no bins it fed really closely at head height. Much more fluffed up that this picture the white became extended to appear a continuous patch contrasting with the barred wing and black mantle . I didn't get a great look at the head but a red forecrown and relatively open face was clear and the dark moustachial was indistinct which looked atypical for a Dendrocopos. The bird fed very much like a Downy moving easily on the outer twigs and hanging on the underside of branches, often flitting to a nearby perch rather than long traverses.

So something bugged me about this and the Moscow bird group coordinator also reported that this would be extremely rare when I reported the following day. It turns out Middle Spots don't drum much and this one certainly was. So large white area on the back and vague face pattern mislead me to the wrong ID. It seems this is a lesser spot all along. It was present again the following day (see report) and drumming again but disturbed and not giving great views. Cross it off the list! :)

#back in the USS...# ok so its Russia these daya

Add magpie (from the Aeroexpress) and Goldeneye on the river to my Russian list :)