> hours, and the sunlight seemed tropical
> and polar at the same time, without any
> of the acitinic qualities one associates
> with the polar air, especially below the
> ozone holes. This was in itself worth
> ten bucks, no kidding.
>
>SATE 21
>ROTE ~140
>COTE ~35
>FOTE 5
>LETE 8
>LAGU ~180
>HEGU ~40
>GBBG ~5
>BRPE ~35
>
>Cory's Shearwater 1
>Wilson's Storm-Petrel 5
>
>
>PERIOD IV 1100-1200
>
>SATE 15
>ROTE ~60
>COTE 9
>LETE 17
>FOTE 2
>LAGU ~250
>GBBG 4
>HEGU ~45
>RBGU 5
>BRPE ~85
>
>
>
>Trinidade Petrel 1 light morph
>Greater Shearwater 1
>Pomarine Jaeger 1 light morph adult
>Bridled Tern 1 nonjuvenile (molting ad. or
> second-summer)
>Spotted Sandpiper 1
>American Black Duck 2 (same flight line as terns)
> peep, sp. 2
>
>
>PERIOD V 1200-1300
>
>SATE 0 [remarkable]
>ROTE ~85
>COTE ~55
>LETE 22
>BRPE ~120
>LAGU ~150
>HEGU ~20
>GBBG 9
>RBGU 8
>
>
>Leach's Storm-Petrel 2
>Oceanodroma sp. 2 (both felt to be Leach's)
>Double-crested Cormorant 1
>American Oystercatcher 1
> peep, sp. 16
>Great Egret 1
>Snowy Egret 1
>
>PERIOD IV 1300-1400
>
>SATE 0
>ROTE ~60
>COTE ~15
>FOTE 2
>LETE 14
>LAGU ~80
>GBBG 3
>HEGU ~20
>BRPE 118
>
>Black-capped Petrel 1
>Leach's Storm-Petrel 2
>Wilson's Storm-Petrel 2
>Great Egret 1
>hummingbird, sp. 1
>
>PERIOD VII 1400-1500
>
>SATE 0
>ROTE ~45
>COTE ~20
>LETE 8
>FOTE 7
>BRPE 35
>GBBG 3
>HEGU 9
>LAGU ~50
>
>Band-rumped Storm-Petrel 1
>Leach's Storm-Petrel 2
>Wilson's Storm-Petrel 3
>Greater Shearwater 1
>Snowy Egret 1
>Double-crested Cormorant 1
>
>PERIOD VIII 1500-1600
>
>SATE 6
>ROTE ~50
>LETE ~10
>COTE ~15
>FOTE 6
>BRPE 66
>LAGU ~80
>GBBG 9
>HEGU ~25
>
>Black-capped Petrel 2
>Leach's Storm-Petrel 3
>Wilson's Storm-Petrel 14
>Caspian Tern 2
>
>
>PERIOD IX 1600-1700
>
>
>SATE 12
>ROTE ~35
>LETE 8
>COTE ~15
>FOTE 1
>BRPE 46
>LAGU ~200
>GBBG 7
>HEGU 30
>
>Black-capped Petrel 2
>Band-rumped Storm-Petrel 1
>Leach's Storm-Petrel 2
> Oceanodroma sp. 1
>Wilson's Storm-Petrel 12
>
>
>PERIOD X 1700-1800
>
>SATE 2
>ROTE ~50
>LETE 16
>COTE ~20
>FOTE 5
>BRPE 105
>LAGU ~150
>HEGU ~30
>
>Greater Shearwater 1
>Bridled Tern 1 (nonjuvenile; landed on flotsam in
> channel!)
>Wilson's Storm-Petrel 10
>American Oystercatcher 2
>Great Egret 1
>Snowy Egret 1
> Progne sp. 1 f.
>
>PERIOD XI 1800-1845
>
>SATE 0
>ROTE ~30
>COTE ~15
>LETE 1
>BRPE ~30
>LAGU ~100
>HEGU 5
>GBBG 0
>
>Cory's Shearwater 1
>Greater Shearwater 1
>Sooty Tern 1 (adult flying eastward along the beach
> at the base of the CBBT)
>Wilson's Storm-Petrel 8
>
>
>Odinates and butterflies seen:
>
>Painted Lady 1
>Eastern Tiger Swallowtail1
>Pipevine Swallowtail 4
>Sleepy Orange (?) 1
>
>Tramea carolina 10
>Tramea fulvescens (?) 1-2
>Pachydiptla longipennis 10
>
>Languages heard from tourists:
>
>French (Quebecois)
>Spanish
>Vietnamese
>Tagalog (pretty common in Norfolk)
>Northeastern Urban NewJerseyan
>______________________________________________________________
>
>Sunday, 14 July 1996
>
>I regret to say that I was a bit too tired from the two long
>previous days to record data hourly on Sunday. Though the day
>was very good, the winds were steady from the southwest, and
>there were no dramatic changes during the day's passage of birds
>over the course of the day. Here is the complete list.
>Observers were Fenton Day, Bill Williams, Brian Taber, and
>myself. Day and I watched from 0645-1320.
>
>Black-capped Petrel 26
>Leach's Storm-Petrel 14
>Wilson's Storm-Petrel 20+
>Cory's Shearwater 1
>Greater Shearwater 1
>Audubon's Shearwater 1 (not typically an "eye"-bird,
> possibly entered through the mouth
> of the bay)
>Roseate Tern 1 adult (very close)
>Royal Tern 40
>Sandwich Tern 0
>Forster's Tern 1
>Common Tern 40
>Caspian Tern 1
>Wood Duck 1 eclipse male (strangest bird of the
> day, flying east out the channel)
>Great Cormorant 2 (doing a lot of thermoregulating in
> the 93 degree weather; rare in
> summer months but increasing)
>Snowy Egret 7
>Great Egret 12
>Great Blue Heron 1
>Willet 6
>Short-billed Dowitcher 1
>Lesser Yellowlegs 5
>Greater Yellowlegs 1
>Spotted Sandpiper 1
>American Oystercatcher 3
>Laughing Gull ~450
>Great Black-backed Gull ~30
>Herring Gull ~120
>Ruby-throated Hummingbird 2
>Rock Dove 1
>Brown-headed Cowbird 6
>Barn Swallow 25
>Cliff Swallow 2
>Tree Swallow 30
>Purple Martin/Progne sp. 10
>
>
>Odinates and butterflies
>
>Same as on previous day, with additional spp.:
>
>Cabbage Butterfly 1
>swallowtail sp. 1
>Red Admiral 1 (cheating, really, as it was in a
> car's grill in the parking lot)
>Gulf Fritillary 0 (big disappointment)
>unidentified 15
>
>Mammals seen both days included 15-40 Tursiops truncatus, inshore
>stock of Atlantic Bottlenose Dolphin, and 1-2 Mus musculus, your
>basic introduced house mouse. I learn with great interest from
>Fenton Day and Bill Williams of the presence of Microtus
>pennsylvanicus and Cryptotis parva on all four artificial
>islands. Williams speculates that in the year 2090, a graduate
>student will split four new species of each (smaller forms to the
>south, larger and darker to the north), naming them "Island 4
>Least-Shrew, Island 3 Least-Shrew," ... you get the picture.
>After 3 days of seawatching, this was enough to make me laugh a
>little too hard.
>
>Languages heard from (many thousands) of tourists
>
>Farsi
>Portuguese
>Spanish (20x+)
>French
>German
>Mandarin
>Japanese
>One of the Nigerian languages
>Italian
>Queens (possibly Flushing vicinity)
>
>Other species observed at Craney Island later on 14 July
>
>Stilt Sandpiper 1
>Wilson's Phalarope 1 m.
>Marbled Godwit 1 (probably storm-associated)
>Gull-billed Tern 12
>Caspian Tern 1
>Royal Tern 50
>Common Tern 35
>Forster's Tern 25
>Black Tern 6
>Black-necked Stilt 4 (2 ad. with their two young of the
> year, raised here!!)
>Western Sandpiper 4 (one in very bright plumage)
>Semipalmated Sandpiper 40
>Least Sandpiper 40
>Short-billed Dowitcher 60
>Lesser Yellowlegs 25
>Greater Yellowlegs 15
>Killdeer 15 (with two day-old chicks! CUTE!)
>Horned Lark 12
>
>Species observed later on 14 July at Hog Island, Surry County
>
>American White Pelican 1
>Bald Eagle 7
>Brown Pelican 4 (uncommon here)
>Orchard Oriole 40 (family groups common)
>Blue Grosbeak 25
>Indigo Bunting 10
>Eastern Bluebird 25
>
>
>
>Totals for the 12 pelagic species recorded 12-14 July 1996
>
>Wilson's Storm-Petrel 136
>Leach's Storm-Petrel 26
>Band-rumped Storm-Petrel 8
>Black-capped Petrel 36
>Trinidade Petrel 2
>
>Cory's Shearwater 4
>Greater Shearwater 7
>Audubon's Shearwater 1
>Sooty Tern 4
>Bridled Tern 2
>Pomarine Jaeger 1
>Red-necked Phalarope 1
>
>One need scarcely say that these numbers, and this diversity of
>species, far outdoes any pelagic trip that has ever been
>conducted off Virginia's coast. Butch Pearce, scanning at Fort
>Story in the evening of the 13th, saw a Black-capped Petrel and
>another gadfly petrel, felt to be Black-capped, passing eastward
>off Cape Henry. Les Willis found a Greater Shearwater dead on
>the Godwin Bridge over the Nansemond River in Suffolk, indicating
>that the far western reaches of the Tidewater were probably
>peppered with pelagic birds that went undetected. From the
>Jamestown ferry, Williams and Taber saw eight Wilson's Storm-
>Petrels resting on the water. The species does not normally
>penetrate this far up into the James River.
>
>Commentary on the flight lines of tubenoses and their import
>
>On 13 July, there were distinct lines of flight apparent from our
>vantage point:
>
>1) Almost all Black-capped Petrels came from western Hampton
>Roads, worked eastward, then southwestward into the wind, but
>then passed northward, west of the second island of the CBBT.
>
>2) All Band-rumped Storm-Petrels save two also followed this line
>of flight, not surprising, given the species' powerful affinity
>with the niche of Black-capped Petrels. One Band-rumped exited
>the channel to the east (as did one Black-capped), in the
>afternoon, whereas one in the morning flew -- in arcs more than
>10 meters off the ocean's surface -- about 1-2 meters behind a
>Cory's Shearwater (a species with which it frequently associates
>in the Gulf Stream)!!! This was an incredible sight in the 50-60
>knot winds, something not observable from our small boats.
>
>3) By contrast, almost all Leach's Storm-Petrels seemed to pass
>from the west or north and fly steadily toward the southwest, in
>line with the tern, gull, and pelican flocks. Several Leach's
>seemed exhausted, and several others apparently tried to feed
>half-heartedly, though none was seen to be successful.
>
>4) Wilson's Storm-Petrels were fairly catholic, coming in and out
>of the channel, flying north and south. I probably undercounted
>them by 50% or so. They seemed at home in the Bay and fed
>actively over small areas of upwelling and tide rips, as usual.
>
>5) The light morph Trinidade Petrel, at 11:20, passed from the
>east toward the channel and then northward, along the west side
>of the second island. The second Trinidade, a dark morph at
>12:15, knocked our socks off by flying toward us, allowing a
>feather-by-feather discussion while the bird flapped languidly
>into the southwest wind at 100-200 meters (nearly holding its
>position), then SITTING DOWN just west of the channel on the Bay,
>looking exhausted. It drifted slowly northward in the Bay and
>out of sight.
>
>6) The Bridled Terns and all but one of the Greater Shearwaters
>seemed to have their acts together more than any of the other
>birds. They entered the channel and passed eastward. One of the
>Bridleds sat for 20 minutes on a piece of wood floating in the
>channel, and another made a wide loop around the red channel
>marker northeast of the first island, before continuing eastward.
>Most of the Cory's and the single Audubon's also passed out of
>the channel to the east.
>
>On the second day, 14 July, Bastille Day, the flight line of
>Leach's had not changed, and more were tallied the second day
>than the first. Many Black-cappeds of the nearly 30 recorded had
>altered course and were returning -- in one case, in a string of
>EIGHT -- to fly toward the southwest, into the wind, presumably
>then passing westward toward Willoughby when they encountered
>land in 6.6 km to the south. None were seen to cycle back
>northward and then southward, though they should have been
>visible if they had been doing so. It's difficult to say.
>
>What to make of all these flight lines? The most disoriented of
>all the birds appeared to be the deepwater/warmwater tubenoses,
>Black-capped and Trinidade Petrels and Band-rumped Storm-Petrel.
>These species were arguably most out of their element as well.
>Both flew northward after clearly seeing the channel, suggesting
>confusion on their part as to what the narrow channel and the
>land (Cape Henry) beyond it mean. The breadth of the Bay (about
>48 km here) may have looked more inviting than the sight of the
>bridge-barrier and land, and they reckoned the exit to be to the
>north rather than the east (there was no sun in the earlier hours
>to orient themselves by). I expect these birds continued north
>until it was apparent, in Maryland waters, that the Bay had no
>real outlet. That three times as many Black-cappeds were found
>on 14 July than on 13 July supports this thinking.
>
>Leach's Storm-Petrels also seemed weak and disoriented, and their
>exit strategy, though it did not include northbound flight in
>over 95% of cases, was likely not more successful than that of
>the preceding three species. I doubt that any of these four
>species would choose to fly over land with all this water in
>sight, hence their being "trapped" in the lower Bay. I fully
>expect that as I write this on 15 July, the Bay is still teeming
>with pelagic birds. I expect that a seawatch at Sandy Point
>State Park, or near Maryland's Bay Bridge, or even on the many
>necks of Virginia's western shore, would have produced good
>numbers of tropical tubenoses, but as far as I can tell, none of
>these strategies was employed.
>
>Terns of all description clear out of the area rapidly following
>a storm, as John Fussell's excellent dissection of the results of
>Hurricane David demonstrated clearly. I expect that Anderson and
>I forewent a few Sooty Terns by arriving two and a half hours
>after we should have. The rapid departure of most Sandwich Terns
>was remarkable -- in spite of the powerful southwesterly flow,
>the birds were determined to return whence they came. Very
>powerful fliers. The three Sooty Terns at Kingsmill marina, on
>the James River, were found by Tom Armour at first light; none
>were seen thereafter.
>
>The path of the hurricane may have been ideal for the spectacle
>seen in the lower Bay. It lingered in the Gulf Stream, then
>travelled rather rapidly, west of most of the North Carolina
>sounds, over few large bodies of water (Lake Drummond probably
>held quite a few oddities), overnight to reach the western mouth
>of the Bay just predawn. In Virginia Bay waters, the eye of the
>storm was always in, or just west of, the Bay. Because we know
>from previous storms like David that the EASTERN side of the eye
>is the one that produces birds, it would be hard to conceive of a
>storm better tailored for pelagic birding in the Bay. Had the
>storm remained a hurricane, the CBBT would have remained closed
>(as it was overnight), and we would have seen little of this --
>Fort Story produced very very little in the way of pelagics, and
>the limitations of other sites on the state's coast is clear.
>
>Consequences for Virginia's avifaunal lists and regional lists
>
>(continued with part 2 e-mail Hurricane Bertha's Birds)

Dennis Paulson, Director phone 206-756-3798
Slater Museum of Natural History fax 206-756-3352
University of Puget Sound e-mail dpaulson at ups.edu
Tacoma, WA 98416