A two and a half week trip (Aug. 4-22) took us from Halifax-Cape
Breton-Brier Island-Kejimkujik National Park in Nova Scotia, to
Portland Maine (Scarborough Marsh), to Mass. (Plum
Island,Cape Cod) with a final stop in Jamestown, Rhode Island.
We took pelagic trips out of Port Morien with Cathy Murrant, The Bird
Islands with the Van Shiek's, Brier Islands with Carl Haycock and a
commercial tour out of Newburyport, Mass. We enjoyed all the trips and
were especially impressed with the day we spent with Cathy and Allan Murrant
and Carl Haycock's tour. Both were extremely birder friendly with
knowledgeable leaders. They seemed to have a great sense of how to merge
whale watching/birding with the ecology of the sea. The Tour to the Bird
Islands was also a lot of fun. It seemed to be a little more touristy,
but that could have just been the trip that we were on. The journey out
of Newburyport was a whale watching trip and we had over 100 people. It
seemed less ideal for birding as the boat really cruised through the
water. The whale watching was fabulous though.

We saw mostly the birds we expected to see at this time of the year, plus
a few we were hoping to get lucky with. The highlights were a pair of
Mourning Warblers near Big Bras D'r,Bicknell's Thrush off
the Benjy's Lake Trail(Cape Breton National Park), Razorbills, Atlantic
Puffins, Wilson's and Leach's Storm-Petrels, Light phase Northern Fulmar,
Greater and Manx Shearwaters from the northern Nova Scotia pelagics.

On the Brier Island trip Carl did a great job of spotting a South Polar
Skua,and a Commom Murre as well as the expected Shearwaters and Storm
Petrels. We were fortunate to see over 20 Right Whales that day
and a basking shark as well. The people on board got great looks at the
birds. It's a credit to Carl that he is willing to take the time to do this.

The U.S. part of the trip was notable for the following:
Both forms of Sharp-tailed Sparrow (Scarborough Marsh)
White Pellican (Plum Island)
White-rumped Sandpipers (Plum Island)
Bar-tailed Godwit in with both Hudsonian and Marbled (Monomoy Island)
Cory's Shearwater (Newburyport)
Great Tit (Jamestown, R.I.)

Aside from the great birds we also saw:
Gray Seals
Harbor Porpoises
White-sided Dolphins
Fin Whales
Pilot Whales
Humpback Whales
Right Whales
Beluga Whale (resident in the Guysborough harbor)
Minke Whales and
Moose

All in all a fabulous trip. Thanks to all of you who sent us information
to make this a great event.

Barry Levine and Kate Tillotson