Bird Board
Leach's Storm-Petrel off Elliot Key
I took the family out on Saturday for a day of fishing and snorkeling. After trying the reef without much luck, I tried some trolling for mahi out deeper. In 700' of water, I found a Storm-Petrel working a slight weedline. At first I thought it could be a Band-rumped, but the flight looked all wrong. I took a closer look and realied it was a Leach's. Other that that, things continue to remain slow, with only a few birds and no mahi, fr me at least. Talk on the radio was slow as always, with only a couple of boats finding any mahi and many others not. Here is the bird list for this short outing:
Leach's Storm-Petrel
Brown Booby
Cory's Shearwater
Audubon's Shearwater
Brown Noddy
Bridled Tern
Sooty Tern
The lack of any other Storm-Petrels and very few birds is disheartening. I don't know what's going on, but things are slower than normal out there right now.
Comments
That would be a nice #330 for the county... it would also be ABA state bird #360 but who's counting, right?
Considering that I have flown/driven over 20,000 miles just to see a Leach's, your bird is all the more remarkable so close to home. Good find.
Keep looking. There may be some prions out there.
I agree, Toe
I spent most of Sunday using my radar to chase groups of birds off Jupiter. I saw lots of bridled and sooty terns, a few shearwaters, but no storm petrels.
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