Yesterday morning a friend took me out into Casco Bay for a little deep water birding off the Maine Coast. With Covid-19 cancelling many of the usual pelagic trips, I’ve had to fill my year list with different approaches to off shore birds.
In years past Great and Manx Shearwaters are regular visitors to Casco Bay and I expected to get easy ticks on my 2020 checklist. About 10 miles out to sea, a large Shearwater with an enormous wingspan (40+ inches) flew in and checked us out. It was a brief visit and I got a few quick photos and he was gone.
Being the bird “expert” I told my friend that it was a Great Shearwater (nice but fully expected) and we continued on out to sea. Only upon reviewing my photos in the evening did I realize that it was a Corey’s Shearwater . . . a much rarer visitor to Maine waters (normally found south of Cape Cod) and a lifer.
The rest of the trip was fun, lots of Storm-Petrels, Terns and Guillemots but no more Shearwaters . . . but the Corey was super exciting.