I was asked to lead a birding boat trip out of Lynnhaven, Virginia Beach, yesterday, organized by the Williamsburg Bird Club, aboard the "Bay Princess." Our captain said the very cold 37 degree water at the mouth of Chesapeake Bay had forced many fish and birds at least 50 miles south...we didn't see a single Northern Gannet which are usually plentiful. The air temperature was also in the 30s as we cruised along the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-tunnel, almost to the Eastern Shore. We were treated to a spectacular assemblage of at least 15 seals...photo by Seig Kopinitz...of a varierty of colors...usually we only see Harbor Seals....the single swimming seal picture appears to be a Gray Seal by the head profile, which would be quite rare this far south...another seal in the middle of the photo and the one to the far right appear to have much smaller, different-shaped heads. Comments are welcome. Thanks to some chumming of cut menhaden by the first mate, we had a following of hundreds of gulls.
Birds seen were:
Common Loon 3
Brown Pelican 2
Great Cormorant 12
Double-crested Cormorant 1,250
Brant 6
Lesser Scaup 440
Greater Scaup 10+
Long-tailed Duck 9
Black Scoter 13
Surf Scoter 625
White-winged Scoter 1
Bufflehead 800
Red-breasted Merganser 25
Osprey 1
Peregrine 1
Ruddy Turnstone 5
Sanderling 20
Purple Sandpiper 12
Bonaparte's Gull 16
Ring-billed Gull 135
Herring Gull 550
Lesser Black-backed Gull 2
Great Black-backed Gull 35
Brian Taber
