Fin Whale at Cape Cod

After yesterday's Long-finned Pilot Whales off East Lothian, I thought I would post some pictures of the biggest animal that I have seen to date - an incredibly impressive Fin Whale seen at near touching distance on a whale watching trip from P-town, Cape Cod. This animal literally brought tears to my eyes such was the excitement of this unexpected close encounter. One of those real highlight moments that occur occasionally in many years of wildlife watching.

Pilot Whales in the Forth

The first twitch I have been on this autumn was for mammals rather than birds. The remnants of the pod of Pilot Whales that had made the news recently by beaching in Fife last weekend had spent the week in the Forth - swimming so far West that it seemed likely that none of the group would survive. Luckily they had turned East and managed to get out past the bridges again.

This morning news broke that they were off Cockenzie harbour, so with little delay mum and I headed down to find several others already watching them. We enjoyed prolonged distant views, and managed to count at least 15, although apparently there are 20 in the group. Clearly a variety of different sizes in the pod, it was not clear whether the animals were feeding but at one point they appeared to be circling a buoy for a while. Not a new species for me after seeing a large group off Porthgwara in Cornwall about 20 years ago, this is the first time I have seen them and known what I was looking at at the time...

The round head and very low blow are visible on the animal on the right. The dorsal fins show quite a lot of variation, some clearly longer and more stepped at the front than this individual.

It was nice to bump into Stephen as well - his local patch is having a really god run at the moment.

Piping Plovers

I haven't had the time to go birding recently with work and other commitments filling my time. I did manage an hour in the garden today and enjoyed lifting the year's crop of onions in the sun. As I had finished brushing the soil from the last a piping 'clooee' call from above drew my eye to a Ringed Plover flying S strongly overhead. It veered toward Alnwickhill, but now the water treatment works is dry there was little hope it was going to pitch down there.  This is the 78th species on the garden list but only the fourth wader (Curlew, Snipe, Whimbrel and Ringed Plover) - Lapwing is long overdue!

The photographs here are not of that species, but of Piping Plovers photographed at Cape Cod earlier in the summer.

2CY American Herring Gulls

They might not be pretty but I was hoping to see more of these brutes than I managed. Here are the two 2CY individuals that came into photographic range. The flying bird was offshore and the other was on Marconi Beach, MA, in July.

Edit: found another pic of a different, but very similarly plumaged bird (right), also offshore.

Also here are some very heavily cropped pics of another 2CY American Herring Gull showing off its dark tail feathers.

East coast Wilson's Storm Petrel

East coast of the States that is. A twitchable WISP on the East coast of Scotland might even have me chasing...

I was very pleased to finally get some decent views of Wilson's Storm Petrels (off Cape Cod, MA, in July) - after all they are reputed to be one of the world's most abundant species of birds. Off Cape Cod they certainly weren't uncommon though there were not keen to hang around close to any of the whale watching boats - no chumming on these trips!

Unlike me they were on their winter vacation, seeking refuge from their Antarctic breeding grounds. Taking advantage of the northern summer to feed up and moult.

 Here are a few more shots to help get my eye in for next time... on this side of the Atlantic, please.

Badly dressed eiders

One of the highlights of our summer trip to Cape Cod was the whale watching out from Provincetown. The whales were abundant, diverse and spectacular and the birds weren't bad either. As we left the harbour we sailed past these Dresser's Eiders. This taxon is either considered to be a North American form of the Common Eider or a distinct species in its own right. I don't mind either way, but the drakes are certainly distinctive with the enlarged lobes stretching up their faces.

Here are two different males - the only two I managed shots of. I am not sure how variable the lobe shape is in this form but like other eiders I have seen there is a slight variation in lobe shape even in this tiny sample... Not much variation in their plumage though - universally grotty...

The females do not share the extensive lobes and I am not sure whether they could be distinguished from our birds easily. I have lightened this picture to get an idea of the lobe shape in this female Dresser's Eider; it appears to extend gracefully toward the eye.

Finally here are some moulting male Common Eiders photographed at Musselburgh a few days ago - puny lobes in comparison to the males above. And no better dressed either...

Something about Ring-billed Gulls

There is something in the way she moves, 

attracts me like no other guller

as Harrison might have written in his classic song. Had he been writing about Ring-billed Gulls rather than lovers. And had he been Peter Harrison of Seabirds fame rather than George Harrison of Beatles fame, perhaps.

Anyway, Ring-billed Gulls do have a distinctive gait. They hold their heads high and stride forward on long legs.

Further proof that it may just have been Peter Harrison that penned Something is found in the third verse, which appears to urge all gull watchers to be optimistic yet also realistic...

Stick around, and it may show,

But I don't know, I don't know

Colour Ring-billed Gull

After multiple misread gull rings at Alnwickhill over the last year I was delighted to find that the nearest adult Ring-billed Gull on Marconi Beach in Cape Cod in July was sporting a fine piece of bling. Well I'll be gol darned if its not mighty close enough to read and captured on camera n'all - things are just so much easier stateside it seems.

It turns out that this Ring-billed Gull was ringed at the Ile Dirette, Laval, near Montral in Quebec in June 2010 as an adult and is a male. 

Here are some more adult Ring-billed Gulls loafing on the sands. Great birds in my opinion, but not a feeling shared by everyone - I think that one of the motivations behind the colour ring studies in Canada is to try to understand this species behaviour better in order to reduce the conflict between the Ring-billed Gull and residents of cities such as Montreal...

First-summer (2CY) Ring-billed Gulls, Cape Cod, MA

Continuing with Ring-billed Gulls, these second calendar year birds are of an age that, in theory at least, is a little more likely to be seen here on the East coast of Scotland than yesterday's juveniles. Again two individuals were present on Marconi Beach, foraging at the end of the day for scraps dropped by tourists taking advantage of July's heatwave.