Focus on Nature Tours ran their annual late August pelagic out of Brielle, NJ on Saturday, August 28. The destination for this trip is the tip of the Hudson Canyon.

This year we had our best bird ever for this trip...not one, but TWO White-faced Storm-Petrels. The first bird was picked up around noon and we followed it due north for nearly 5 miles before it lost us. Killer views were had by all and both photos and video were taken. I'd like to take this opportunity to congratulate the Captain on an incredible job of staying with this bird. Following a storm-petrel with a 110', 96 ton, steel hulled boat is not easy. The bird definitely ended up in New York waters, but it's going to be close as to whether the nearest point of land to our starting location was NJ or NY. After we lost it, we headed east again towards deeper water for about a half hour. That's when the second bird showed up. We couldn't hold onto the second bird so only a small group of people got to see it.

With these 2 White-faced Storm-Petrels, FONT trips have seen a total of FOUR for this summer. We had one incredibly well on July 31 out of Manteo, NC and another less cooperative bird on August 7 also out of Manteo. It seems like this is the year of the White-faced. I have seen only two other birds in 20 years of doing pelagics. I found water temperature and depth to be rather interesting. Birds seen previously out of NC and MD seem to prefer water in the upper 70's. The water was 85 degrees for both Manteo birds and 73 degrees for the Brielle birds. All 4 birds were in fairly shallow water. Three of the birds were seen in less than 75 fathoms and the first bird we saw out of Manteo was in only 200 fathoms.

Other highlights were a juvenile Long-tailed Jaeger (for the 4th year in a row), several Audubon's Shearwaters (in both NJ and NY waters), and a good number of sea turtles including excellent looks at two Leatherbacks. Lowlights were a lack of Cory's, a lack of passerines, and a lack of cooperation by the dolphins who just didn't want to come in to play with the boat.

If Hurricane Dennis doesn't say otherwise, FONT will be running two trips out of Cape May on September 4 and 5. September 4 is sold out but there are still two spaces available on September 5 as of this posting. Contact FONT at 1-800-362-0869 or font@focusonnature.com to make a reservation.