I joined up with Dave Patton, Danny Dobbs, and Mac Myers yesterday for a boat trip out of Cameron into the near-shore gulf. Dave has a nice boat that's big enough to go a few miles out when there's a little bit of a swell, but small enough to maneuver along the rock jetties leading out of the ship channel. We check the rocks on both sides of the jetty every time out in hopes of finding good shorebirds or gulls, but the truth of the matter is that Dave has one thing on his mind when he hits the water, and that's jaegers.
On the way out, I noticed a major dropoff in bird numbers from those of previous trips. There were few shorebirds on the rocks, few gulls and terns roosting on the shell bars, and not much in terms of birds over the gulf itself.
Dave's trick for finding jaegers is to look for the crowds of birds that follow shrimp boats, but the only shrimp boat we saw was tied idle to a rig. We saw a small group of birds following a crewboat in, so we headed toward it. As it passed, we saw two jaegers accompanying the group back toward the ship channel. We continued on out offshore.
By this point, we weren't seeing any birds. This was a bad situation because jaegers are attracted to flocks of the feeding gulls they rob for food--over even kill and eat--and without gulls, we'd have to be lucky to find jaegers. There were a few Royal Terns, but even Laughing Gulls were absent. Eventually a Laughing Gull passed and Dave tossed out a handful of popcorn. The bird banked and dropped in for the food. Within minutes, keen-eyed gulls from the distance had spotted the activity and made it to the boat. Clearly these birds were hungry, maybe even starving at this time of year.
Then, a jaeger appeared. We were expecting a quick passby and maybe the chance to snap off a few quick pictures. It zoomed by...
then came closer...
and turned and saw the popcorn...
and settled onto the water.
And then another jaeger came, and another. Soon there were 6 Pomarine Jaegers sitting on the water around us and buzzing us for popcorn.
They were as wild and untamed as only jaegers can be, real cold-eyed killers:
With their noble, savage crops full of popcorn.
From there, we hit the rocks again, and got great looks at American Oystercatchers.
Then we headed back out to look for more jaegers.
We built up a little flock of gulls, but no jaegers seemed interested. Then Dave saw a group of gulls following the churned-up wake of a passing boat, and we motored toward it. As the birds passed, Dave offered them some popcorn, and soon we had a great flock feeding around us. The jaegers that we saw out here weren't very cooperative, just passing by.
But we did pick up a California Gull...
as well as this pale-winged gull that seems best for a Kumlien's/Thayer's Gull:
It was a great day on the water. The weather, the birds, and the company were all top notch. A big thanks to Dave Patton!
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