Overnight NJ Pelagic Sept 6th & 7th, 2023

Leaders: George Armistead, Zach Baer, Emma Price & Scott Barnes

Aboard: The Gambler

Out of: Point Pleasant Beach

Image credits:

Bridled Terns by Emma Price

Cory’s (Scopoli’s) Shearwater by Brian Zylich

Cuvier’s Beaked Whale by Jessica Coss 

Sunrise aboard The Gambler atop 8000 feet of Atlantic Ocean water, about 100 miles offshore from Pt. Pleasant Beach, New Jersey.

Part of the thrill of a pelagic trip is that you just never know what you’re going to see. It can be slow at times out on the water, but typically there is always something you see that makes it rewarding. And occasionally you get to see really spectacular things. The Sept 6-7 Overnight pelagic out of point Pleasant, New Jersey, was notable more for the wildlife than for the bird sightings, but we did have some great birds, too. 

Tropical Terns: Most notable was we had two groups of tropical terns, which are hard to come by in New Jersey waters. One pair of terns flew by keeping some distance from us. At the time we strongly suspected Bridled Tern would be the species involved, but inspection of photos by leader Emma Price show a juvenile and an adult Sooty Tern. This species is hardly seen in New Jersey when not associated with a tropical storm, so this was quite a surprise and one of only 4-5 sightings in the past decade. Later we located 3 Bridled Terns resting on flotsam amid some sargassum weed. A juvenile with two adults, these birds probably have ventured north from the nearest breeding grounds in the Bahamas or perhaps further south in the Caribbean. These are the first sightings documented in New Jersey waters in over a decade.

But it was really the cetaceans and other wildlife that stole the show. Leaving the dock at Manasquan Inlet at 9PM, by 4AM we reached our starting point. We stopped the engines, put out some chum and began to drift, and to look and listen to the waters around us . With just light winds out of the south it was a beautiful night, and we could see Saturn glowing orangish on the horizon. A couple of warblers briefly approached the boat, and then kept moving. The water temperature here was about 75° and the ocean floor was close to 8000 feet below us. We had made it out to “the deep”.

Soon after we settled into our drift, the lights of the boat began to attract some wildlife. There were dozens of Webbed Flying Squid all around the boat. We managed to bring some onboard into a bucket to observe them, and we watched them ink the waters, and change color as their body pulsated. Schools of them darted around and below the boat. Our photos of these animals mark one record of less than 10 ever in iNaturalist.

While we waited for it to get light we watched moon jellyfish push past us in the water, and several Wilson’s storm Petrels came into the boat, landing on it. We had wonderful studies of these remarkable seabirds, one of the most widespread animals on the planet, yet one hardly ever seen so well as this. As the sun rose, a blue shark began circling our boat, attracted to the chum, and more and more birds began to appear. Then a distant pod of striped dolphins emerged, and they hustled along, and soon after that we had a distant sighting of a sperm whale. Cory’s, Great, and Audubon Shearwaters came in providing close views, and photos show that at least one of the Cory’s we saw was of the Scopoli’s (Calonectris diomedea diomedea) subspecies (image above), a taxon elevated to species by most taxonomists (though not by eBird/Clements). The Great Shearwaters came in and landed right next to the boat. At times, we could hear the Wilson Storm-Petrels, and the Great Shearwaters as they vocalized to one another. We tried in vain to record Wilson’s Storm-Petrels, for which there are only a total of 10 audio recordings in eBird.

As the sun rose, the sea revealed more amazing animals. We began to see large groups of Offshore Bottlenose Dolphins, which average 15% larger than and differ genetically from the well-known inshore ones we see along our beaches. Mixed among the Offshore Bottlenose were pods of Short-finned Pilot Whales, including one hulking bull male. Later we began to encounter Cuvier’s Beaked Whales. While this is the most widespread member of the beaked whale family (Ziphiidae), it is still quite a rare thing to see, and a really rare thing to see well. We encountered three separate pods, including a pair that we watched rising repeatedly and rapidly before diving and leaping out of the water right next to our starboard! It was a spectacular thrill to see these animals so close and thanks are due to the many photographers onboard who snagged shots that allowed us to identify these animals.

All in all it was a darn nice haul!

Birds Seen Offshore:

Laughing Gull
Herring Gull
Great Black-backed Gull
Sooty Tern (2)
Bridled Tern (3)
Black Tern (2)
Common Tern
Royal Tern
Wilson's Storm-Petrel (626)
Leach's Storm-Petrel (4)
Band-rumped Storm-Petrel (3)
Cory's Shearwater (45; >1 Scopoli’s)
Great Shearwater (30)
Audubon's Shearwater (4)

Non-Avian Taxa

Cetaceans
Striped Dolphin 45
Bottlenose Dolphins 60
Risso’s Dolphin 9
Sperm Whale 2
Short-finned Pilot Whales 45
Cuvier’s Beaked Whales 9

Sea-Turtles

Sea Turtle sp. 1 (small, Ridley-type or Green)

Loggerhead 16

Fish

Blue Shark

Scalloped Hammerhead Shark

Ocean Sunfish (Mola mola)

Flying fish sp.

Mahi mahi

Needle/gar type 

Cephalopods

Webbed Flying Squid (Ommastrephes caroli)