Xenornis

Report by Jan Axel Cubilla Photographs by Rafael Luck Date: October 25th, 2014. Participants: George Angehr, Rafael Luck, Euclides Campos and Jan Axel Cubilla (plus captain Jeff Hopkins and crew member “Lito”) We departed at 6:30 am from El Arenal beach, close to the town of Pedasi aboard a 30 ft sport fishing boat and headed directly to the south. Our intention was to chum a mixture of fish oil (kindly donated by Fulo Motta and Laly Vallarino) and bait plus popcorn at two different seamounts (at N 7º 14’ 52.0’’, W -80º 1’ 0.2’’ and 7º 18’ 31.7’’, W -79º 39’ 43.1’’, this last one surrounded by 1000-meter depths). We planned a 8-hours long trip, spending at least one hour at each seamount. The top speed of the boat was 12 nm, and we reached the farthest point from land at 27 nm approximately. In total, we recorded 19 species (plus three taxa), including eight tubenoses (petrels, shearwaters and storm-petrels), five jaegers and terns, and three suliformes (frigatebirds and boobi...

On Saturday, August 7, Claudia & Bill Ahrens, Rosabel & Karl Kaufmann, and Delicia & Darién Montañez braved the threatening skies over Pedasí and headed out for Islas Frailes. Frailes del Sur were covered in birds: about 500 Bridled Terns , including some in juvenile plumage, maybe 200 Brown Noddies, and 100 Sooty Terns , including some 25 in juvenile plumage that would often fly over our boat. Further out, and after deploying the chum, we started running into procellariids: one or two Galápagos Shearwater , a single Sooty Shearwater and a dozen Wedge-rumped Storm-Petrels . Our persistence was rewarded when we approached a flock of noddies and ran into about 120 Galápagos Sheawaters sitting on the water, allowing for really close views. Of course, I completely forgot I had a camera on me. After this flock flew and floated away, we went out some more and found another similar flock, this time with about 80 Galápagos Shearwaters, similarly well-behaved. Our boatman estimated...

On the morning of Saturday, September 6, eight Panama Auduboners braved the ominous, overcast skies and headed out to sea for a morning of pelagic birding on our yearly fieldtrip to Islas Frailes del Sur. We headed straight out, saving the islands for the way back. On the way out we saw the first of many Wedge-rumped Storm-Petrels, which were not seen on our July scouting trip. At the end of the day we were up to 16 wedge-rumpeds, with a single, unidentifed storm-petrel with a dark rump. We stopped about 20 km offshore and drifted for a long, seasickening while, while trying to lay a good, smelly oil slick to try and lure something in. Sure enough, not an hour had passed when we had a Sooty Shearwater fly in and look around for a bit before continuing on its shearwaterly business. We then wandered about aimlessly to get some fresh air on our green faces and found an unidentified phalarope and two more wedge-rumped storm petrels sitting on the water. Eventually we approached Frailes ...