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Birding has been an all-consuming interest for Patrick Cardwell since boyhood days spent in a wildlife-rich environment. When he isn’t snapping photos in the field, training local bird guides, or supporting seabird-related conservation initiatives, he runs Avian Leisure, a birding and wildlife safari company out of Cape Town established in 1998, with his wife, Marie-Louise. [...]

It seemed liked an innocuous idea. Seven birders, a boat for hire, and a cruise around lower New York Harbor and vicinity looking for good birds. What could possibly go wrong? After all, the forecast was for mostly sunny skies, light winds, and no big waves. Therefore the seven of us who climbed aboard a [...]

Red-tailed Tropicbird. “This clumsy, ungraceful bird was displeasing to observe” – Carol F.   Pelagic trips. There is nothing in birding like a pelagic…you never know what to expect. You can end up basking in a rare bird bliss that may linger for weeks, or you basically experience a living hell. Today I will give [...]

From the perspective of the shore, the ocean looks featureless.  A pancake flat expanse of blue and green and blue-green (with some green-blue thrown in).  From your vantage point at approximately 6 inches above sea level you can see clear to the nearly infinite horizon without squinting.  Compare this to birding on land, where desirable [...]

If the state of North Carolina is known for one thing in the greater birding world, it’s what goes on off of its central coast.  The Outer Banks, that skinny string of barrier islands that juts perilously into the Atlantic like a wayward elbow out a car window, is a phenomenal spot for birding by [...]

Iceland Gulls do not breed in Iceland.  They do winter there, as well as in northern parts of Europe, in eastern and central Canada, and across the northeastern and central United States, but like many other birds named after places they essentially have a misnomer.  But if one detaches “Ice” from “land” and puts a [...]

When a pelagic trip is short of great new birds to watch there is almost always the chum scrum to entertain the despondent birder.  The chum scrum is the gang of birds, usually made up of gulls plus whatever else is in the vicinity, that follows the boat snapping up the food being thrown off [...]

A big bruiser of a bird, the Glaucous Gull is nothing if not bulky.  It sometimes looks like a gull built from a child’s blocks, with its square-headed appearance and barrel-chested brawn.  But when Larus hyperboreus is viewed from the back of a boat as it fights for position in a chum line it transcends [...]

I’ve mentioned before that New Zealand is a great place for enjoying petrels. In particular the South Island destination of Kaikoura is world-renowned for the flocks of albatrosses and giant petrels floating right off the pelagic boat, and the ease of the trip makes it a must-visit for any visiting birder. Kaikoura isn’t, however, the [...]

There was something missing in all of the birding that I did in southern California over the holidays.  Sea birds!  And I am not a huge fan of seawatching unless it is done from a boat, in which case it becomes the much more enjoyable pelagic birding.  Being in a boat looking for birds is [...]

This weekend was when I finally, finally, finally, after numerous failed attempts this year due to car problems and weather, got on a boat and went on a summer pelagic trip off the eastern tip of Long Island.  I had visions of shearwaters, jaegers, phalaropes, and skuas in my head when Doug and his dad, [...]

This will be the last post using material from the pelagic trip I took over a week ago, but I think I might have saved the best for last.  Northern Gannets Morus bassanus are an amazing bird to watch, especially from a boat where one can see them up close in their element.  On the [...]

Though it may sound like Dick Cheney’s fondest dream – putting fifty-plus fanatics on a boat for eight hours in the Atlantic Ocean in the middle of winter with a storm coming – in this case it was not torture.  In fact, this specific group of fifty-plus fanatics not only wanted to be on a [...]

Five days ago Daisy and I, staying busy doing our post-bar exam babymoon staycation, went on a whale watching trip on the Viking Star, a vessel based in Montauk Harbor at the eastern extremity of Long Island.  The trip, one of three weekly trips organized by CRESLI (Coastal Research and Education Society of Long Island), [...]

Of all the birds one can see in southern California there is one that is a bit more special than the rest. The Island Scrub-Jay (Aphelocoma insularis) is that bird. Not just because it has a larger bill and brighter, more intense colors than the everyday Western Scrub-Jay, but because it only can be found [...]

In my post about the pelagic trip I took on Sunday I mentioned a jaeger that was spotted, a jaeger that was initially (and erroneously) identified as a Parasitic Jaeger, but was later, thanks to photographs, identified as a Pomarine Jaeger. I didn’t get the greatest looks at the bird to begin with, and seeing [...]

When one is doing a Big Year in New York one must go on pelagic trips. As many as possible. Because I wasn’t doing a Big Year at the beginning of the year I didn’t go on the February trip out of Freeport so I had a giant hole in my year lists where wonderful [...]

The alarm went off at 3:30 AM and I woke up unsure of where I was but convinced I missed the boat. Of course I didn’t but it was a horrible time and way to awaken. I showered, brewed some coffee, and was off to Freeport for a See Life Paulagics trip on the boat [...]

I can’t wait until Sunday! I’ll be on a day-long pelagic trip from Freeport, Long Island, into the briny deep of the Atlantic Ocean. There are so many potential lifers it is ridiculous, as I have never been on a pelagic trip this time of year. Birds like South Polar Skua, Pomarine Jaeger, and Audubon’s [...]

A whale watching tour is undoubtedly one of the highlights of a summer trip to Maine. Since our interest in sealife extends to those creatures that fly above the ocean’s surface, we booked the Puffins & Whales tour run by the Bar Harbor Whale Watch Company. Our 3.5 hour excursion promised a full survey of [...]