Diary from the Deep, part 2
by Anthony McGeehan
Back to part 1 All photos by Anthony McGeehan.
Great Shearwater on the open seas.
Sleep proved to be impossible. Lying in my bunk, the degree of pivot was too much. It was like being shoved from one side to the other. The action was in slow motion but the result was the same. There was the inevitable tipping point when all your body’s molecules lurched to port, then back to starboard. The pendulum was accompanied by a Big Dipper stomach-sinking. Outside, the swells brushed the ship’s flanks with a roar that resembled a jet taking off. Loud dead bangs were uncannily similar to the thud of a container being dropped in Belfast docks. The cacophony was topped by the deep glug, glug, glug of sea slobbering and salivating against the porthole. I heard Dermot get up in the middle of the night. He dressed, opened the cabin door, and went outside, Captain Oates style. A few hours later I peered out at Monday. Grey walls of water suggested a slalom course outside the porthole. Strange that, when green sea obliterated the view above sea level, the underwater image looked no different to the bubbles circulating against the inside of a washing machine door. Time to get up, brace myself against the worktop, strap down the chair, and write myself awake. Job done. Now for a full Irish! I spent most of the day in shelter – if not comfort – in a corner of the Wet Deck at the rear of the ship. A few birds swept in from the tempest and joined Fulmars (up to 30), Great Shearwaters (up to ten at once), Gannets (at least eight individuals through the day) and LBBGs (around a dozen).
Surfing Gannet.
The newcomers were: Sabine’s Gull (2 adults), Kittiwake (twelve), Storm Petrel, Arctic Tern (eight), Sooty Shearwater (4), Bonxie and, best of all, a one-year-old Long-tailed Skua that appeared after dinner, at around 1930hrs. It drifted back among the LBBGs and Fulmars and was difficult to keep track of, due to most views being head-on of a brown dot. Occasionally it broke clear of the pack and drifted closer, broadside on. I watched it swoop and check the wake and then swing back into its chosen position: starboard fullback behind the Fulmar midfield. Day 7: Tuesday 25 August Today is National Little Shearwater Day in Ireland. Most records fall on this date, including the bird I saw off Ramore Head, Antrim. Over my shoulder, I can see that the sky is a palate of high heaps of cloud and leads of open canvas, so brightness cannot be far off. The sea is down and no longer is the ship possessed by a kick from The Exorcist. Apart from an irregular gentle heave, it was a restful night. I turned in early just after the 2130hrs weather forecast. The meteorologist was RTE’s Evelyn Cusack. If she is correct, today will be nice. I could be asleep for part of it. I woke with a hangover. That’s what it felt like. No alcohol on this ship, so I must be dehydrated. Perhaps the endless fuzziness induced by having constantly to steady yourself to compensate for the force of gravity coming from all directions rather than just downwards, is the explanation. On the other hand, with urine the colour of Carlsberg, I ought to start drinking water. Back to birds. The only way to establish what is out here is to load up the Celtic Explorer with chum and have a four-hour chum stop every day. The crew tell me that when they haul nets (they occasionally catch fish for various sorts of monitoring purposes) the boat is surrounded. That would be a real sample. I know that certain species would be put off – Sabine’s shy away from boats when a mob of larger birds gather and small petrels do much the same – but the draw would be galactic for everything else. So far, there has been three Long-tailed Skuas on this trip. Technically, none of them are ‘recordable’ due to the exigencies of the methodology. Glad the IRBC don’t have these rules! A few other thoughts, while they are in my head. Great Black-backed Gulls go under the title of Larus marinus. No prizes for translating that title. I know that they loiter offshore but they are completely absent once any more than, roughly, ten miles out. Put another way, might they operate in the zone between land and the horizon? Via email at sea, Bruce Mactavish dispelled my inference that GBBGs might not be as pelagic as I thought. He says that Newfoundland GBBGs do not push offshore until autumn. That would explain their current absence. Herring Gulls are also AWOL. I saw one first-winter on the first day off Cork. Large gulls are being scrutinized daily as there is always the possibility of an Azorean Yellow-legged or North American Herring Gull. But all are LBBGs. A delight to have them around and the juveniles can look a bit scary.
Lesser-black-backed Gull. Yesterday one was remarkably swarthy and had a light belly. I leapt from cover behind huge rollers and pirouetted across the Wet Deck, semi-convinced that I might have stumbled into a juvenile Laughing Gull. Nope, just a runtish LBBG. At other times – depending on the light – juveniles can appear remarkably ‘mealy’ in upperparts texture. To boot, the inner primaries can stand out as a lighter block. This can set alarm bells ringing although for what species I do not know. Over the next few days we will be swinging closer to the northwest corner of Mayo. That may well put us within reach of birds tracking down from the northwest. DIM Wallace and I have always regarded the band of ocean northwest of Inishbofin as the source of seabird riches. When there is a strong puff from that zone we see an almost instantaneous reaction from shore. Grey Phalaropes, Sabine’s Gulls and Long-tailed Skuas have all weighed in without much of a time lag. Our conjecture is that ‘the stuff’ ain’t that far away and must be passing south, just over the horizon. That would put it, not out over the Shelf Break or beyond, but in the ‘inshore’ band between coast and continental shelf. If so, that really is a bit of a paradigm shift in my thinking of where most seabirds are. Fast-forward twelve hours. Today just might have thrown up a new insight. The birds were pretty good, although not stellar. In the early morning a full-tailed adult Pomarine Skua idled past over an undulating but not disturbed ocean. A few petrels appeared. At least a couple of Wilson’s were nailed among a sample of no more than six Stormies. A trickle of other delights included Great Shearwaters (fewer than yesterday and most were ‘at sea’ rather than wake-watching), four separate adult Sabine’s Gulls and an adult Long-tailed Skua ‘sans streamers’.
Pomarine Skua.
Then something mysterious happened. Around early afternoon petrels suddenly became fairly common. It was possible to scan and expect to see three or four in a 90 degrees quadrant. That quantity of Stormies has not been in evidence since 19 August: the day we were in shallow seas off west Cork. At least two more Wilson’s Petrels were noted. I watched one Wilson’s gliding quickly like a wannabe shearwater. It was swinging from side-to-side, trying to maximise lift by scissoring to gain momentum, rather than truly banking. Its speed through the air was impressive; never mind its shortcomings in the matter of careening. In the same busy spell, a few Bonxies, Manx Shearwaters, Arctic Terns and Kittiwakes showed up. By, roughly, 1500hrs the Stormie tally must have hit 40 individuals. Then nothing. For the rest of the day we saw, almost literally, diddlysquat. Very occasionally a Fulmar rode the breezes near the ship and some of the same squad of LBBGs that have been with us all day (5 juveniles, a one-year-old, 3 adults) played about looking for non-existent scraps. A Whimbrel flew southeast.
The Empty Quarter. Was there an explanation for Ground Zero, the Empty Quarter that we were traversing? Well, there might be. The contrast of seabirds versus no seabirds was so dramatic that David Tierney and I checked the submarine contours. I knew that we had been canyoning west of Achill. It transpired that when we were ‘into birds’ we were transiting over a canyon rim. The canyon was 4,800 metres deep. However, its precipitous rim rose to 470 metres. Beyond the rim lay the edge of an 80-mile peneplain running back to Ireland. Had we struck birds because they represented the start of a shallow ‘home turf’ zone stretching back to shore? An alternative explanation is that the canyon walls created a plume of up-welling plankton in a discrete band. Had this concentrated the Stormies and others? Looking at the 3D maps of the underwater topography on the Celtic Explorer’s arsenal of sophisticated computer screens is pure Jules Verne.
One of the computer screens on the Celtic Explorer, showing an underwater canyon depth of 2591 metres. Day 8: Wednesday 26 August As has become routine, I checked the wake to see what had either tagged along during the night or drawn alongside at dawn. For the first time, there was nought. Sweeps of all compass points revealed the same charisma-bypass result. Put simply, deep water is dead water. We were canyoning again. However, the day was bright and clear and a keen, chilly wind was blowing out of the WNW. Until around 1800hrs the wind remained in the same quadrant and hovered close to 20 knots. Dermot and Maggie were on duty outdoors on the Bridge Deck and covered the early shift from 0830hrs to 1030hrs. I took up a more sheltered position near the stern. None of us saw much to write home about. Best was an adult Pomarine Skua. It was crushingly clear that we were crossing a void. Might there be an oasis? In theory, yes. Yesterday’s notion hailing canyon rims as hotspots where plankton plumes deflect upwards – like eddies of wind along a cliff face – held true. By checking the water depth, there really did seem to be a connection. It was hard work but by scanning the sea regularly with 15x56 binoculars, it was possible to locate petrels. None was witnessed feeding but all were skimming low and travelling fast, on the lookout for grub. The real difficulty was trying to pick out Wilson’s under taxing viewing conditions. It was like trying to follow houseflies from a bicycle. I reckoned that 30 or more Storm Petrels were seen. Dermot got a definite Wilson’s Petrel and I saw two certain Leach’s Petrels. Thank heavens for Leach’s unmistakeable large size and aura of ‘dark phase juvenile Long-tailed Skua’. So the canyon rims really do hold petrels. But nothing else. The underwater relief resembled inselbergs or giant sea-stacks; outliers rising from braided valleys running towards the canyon’s steep drop-offs. That’s enough theorizing. It is one thing to collect the observations but quite another to make sense of them. It is important to remember what the birds are up to, which will help explain their distribution. They are here for one of three reasons. One: they are finding food. Two: they are flying to or from feeding areas. Three: they are on migration and not feeding while en route. With so much high-tech kit on this ship it is easy to make the mistake of leaving common sense behind. It was a long day. I kept watching, shift or no shift. Few birds were seen. A single adult Sabine’s Gull (still no juveniles) was scarcely enough to save the day. In fact, cetaceans stole the show. I saw a blow while astern. Independently, Dermot saw it too – plus a view of the majestic beast, a Fin Whale. Around 1700hrs I could take no more binocular scans and went off to the cabin for forty winks. I went out cold. Dinner was slept through but then the ship’s phone rang. It was David. The sea was boiling with Bottle-nosed Dolphins.
Bottle-nose Dolphins.
And so it was. Dermot rushed down to fetch me. The camaraderie of our foursome is superb and also that of everyone on this ‘happy hippie’ ship. If it is possible to sprint up stairs then that is what I did. The sea was different from that which I left 90 minutes earlier. It was calmer and had a new, oily complexion. Its surface was strafed and punctured by an armada of fins and leaping pods of dolphins. White-water depth charges gave a clue to where the action had just been or was about to start. Mothers with calves by their sides could be picked out. ‘Copy mum’ leaping lessons were being enacted in front of our very eyes. The vinyl black backs of Pilot Whales rolled ponderously into view, high fins evoking the menace of Killer Whales. It was a scene out of Genesis. As far as the eye could see, squadron after squadron of Bottle-nosed Dolphins hove into view. Estimates varied from at least 100 to maybe double that amount. Jubilation was all around, crew included. The show had so many encores that someone should tell the compilers at The Guinness Book of Records. In its aftermath I was given leave to grab some dinner but sneaked off to photograph the low evening sun through a tumble-drier load of clouds. Not yet a sunset but rapidly turning into a Turner in pastels. Day 9: Thursday 27 August However, the omens felt good. Especially the news that the Celtic Explorer was being redeployed on a thirty-hour detour. We were required to up sticks and head back down to the position of Databuoy M6. It was faulty and its replacement has been perched above the stern since we left Cobh. Apparently, the weather might improve sufficiently for it to be moored on Saturday, although no one seems to have located the aforementioned benign meteorological prediction. This signals an end to ‘canyon fever’ and it will be good to take off and cruise through the huge transect all the way from where we are at present (30 miles west of The Mullet, Mayo) and finish up 240 miles west of Cork. Wind and sea got up and lifted spirits. We were back in a Roaring Forties seascape, minus albatrosses. By recent standards a veritable horde of seabirds accumulated around the boat and rode the wind astern. Almost 30 Fulmars were there, including a Blue Fulmar. It made one close pass and I got some pictures. Its bill pattern was no different to other Fulmars (in the past I thought that Blue Fulmars had a more clearly ‘ring-billed’ pattern, now I see this as present in many Fulmars too) but it did have more extensive dark eye patches and grey underwings: features that make Blue Fulmar more than just a Fulmar turned grey. A super bird, they always look rare.
Blue Fulmar.
Among the Fulmars were Gannets, two Sooty Shearwaters and occasional others: Bonxies (4), Arctic Tern (3), Sabine’s Gull (1). At sea, there were Manx Shearwaters and Storm Petrels. However, for the second time on this voyage, attention switched to landbirds. Dermot saw a warbler flit past over the rear decks. We looked for it in vain. Almost certainly it was a phylloscopus – most likely Willow Warbler. Next up was a Sand Martin. It fluttered around the more sheltered amphitheatre of the rear lower decks and was probably the small bird spotted by a crewmember perched near a doorway at 2115hrs. The sighting caused Dermot, Maggie and me to abandon Mock the Week. When there was no sign of our quarry we went scurrying back for more Frankie Boyle. The search was called off in record time. If The Rose of Tralee had been on again we would probably have donned snorkels and checked keel n’ all. Day 10: Friday 28 August We were steaming at full tilt to rendezvous with Data Buoy M6. Slamming into the heavy weather 100 miles west of Achill Island (wind WNW Force 6-7) we were travelling into the oncoming rollers rather than heading straight for our destination. Doing that would create even more roll. Apparently, we were often over the edge of the continental shelf. That seems irrelevant today. Seabirds will probably be making the most of these conditions and shifting elsewhere by running down the wind. Dermot managed to get through to the Internet and discovered that 42 Sabine’s Gulls had passed the Bridges of Ross, Clare, by lunchtime. We had not seen any. We are a speck in the ocean with no ability to concentrate birds. There is no food on offer to detain a passing seabird. I watched the morning’s loose line of Great Shearwaters gather themselves into a flock and head away. The species is phenomenal in its ability to synchronise and go. I have seen them do it before. In 2006, a roosting flotilla off Tory Island, Donegal, rose and curled into formation for departure. We ploughed on across a spectacular sea dotted with the serried white pinnacles of giant waves, glimpsing little but taking it all in. A tally of (one apiece) Pomarine Skua, Bonxie, Sooty Shearwater, Manx Shearwater, Storm Petrel and Arctic Tern sounds not so bad. In truth, it was a famine.
Sunset, 200 miles west of Kerry. Day 11: Saturday 29 August Like a sorcerer I crumbled rice cakes into a large Tupperware bowl and added cod-liver oil. I emptied the potion over the side and legged it. By the time I got to one of the higher decks it was obvious that the experiment had worked in its first objective, which was the creation of a slick. But what would it attract? A couple of Fulmars came over for a sniff and an adult and juvenile LBBG pecked at the desiccated rice cakes. That was it. I kept a surreptitious watch on the slick that remained intact and not too far adrift for the next half an hour. On a pelagic trip, a few Stormies would have appeared within minutes. I found it fascinating that none did. Proof that there just weren’t any out here. Eventually a singleton materialized. Alas, slick and ship had by now parted company and I was left squinting at an unidentifiable black dot. Steadily the engineering machinations reached a conclusion and by late morning the new M6 was plopped in the water. Its maiden float created a glassy envelope of water. The effect was incredible. Birds were attracted to the Data Buoy! Two Wilson’s Petrels began to pitter-patter right beside it and were joined by a brace of Great Shearwaters that glided around it. One of the shearwaters indulged in a peculiar activity of throwing itself flat onto the sea surface in a series of belly flops. What it was up to I do not know. On one occasion it also made shallow dives. Were its antics designed to startle fish or other prey? Was it crashing about to rid itself of lice? The Wilson’s Petrels were interesting too. They were not close enough to see well but there was no doubt about their identification. Grey carpal bars were on show and so too the lack of a white underwing stripe. However, the shape they presented was reminiscent of a short-winged Common Swift. The wings looked long and swept back, rather than fat and wide, until the owners fanned them and broke into feeding flutters. Telling Storm Petrel from Wilson’s Petrel has been surprisingly difficult. Rather, it has been made so by, not just distance from the birds, but the angle of view. Seen from a tall deck, it is often tricky to see the diagnostic white underwing stripe of a Storm Petrel. You have to keep watching and hope that the bird twists sufficiently to ‘turn on that light bulb’. The heaving swells bring out a different jizz in the humble Storm Petrel. It is less of a beetling mite and more of a battling Ellen Macarthur.
Storm Petrel. Storm Petrels glide more freely and can look larger and more ‘powerful’ than before. Yes, Wilson’s is a strong, fixed-wing glider but Storm Petrel gives it a good run for its money. What about Wilson’s? The bend on its wing (yes, it has a carpal joint) is actually closer to its body than any other small North Atlantic petrel. From the bend there is a long sweeping wing chord that finishes in a point. When looked at side-on with the bird sweeping along in a ‘power glide’, the wings look long and pointed. Cripes! However, when the bird banks (or breaks into a foraging flutter) the wing is presented in a different plane and appears as a fat sail with a hooked tip. Fluttering is, of course, not a definitive guide to species: Storm Petrels flutter too. However, the bigger, more rounded wings of Wilson’s are dark below. Although slightly two-toned, and a few even show a lighter median strip, they lack the telltale white underwing bar of Storm Petrel. To my eyes Wilson’s wings look as if they are made of thinner black paper than the wings of Storm Petrel. With hindsight, I should have brought a telescope. Since the Celtic Explorer moved exceedingly slowly for most of the day (and was often parked for long periods) it became a target for passing seabirds. They checked us out. Presumably, we might have been a fishing boat offering surrogate food. For the first time since leaving Cobh we turned Pied Piper and drew a following. The cast was tremendous. I guess most birds were migrants and simply dropped in on the way south. Saturday 29 August 2009 became Skua Day. First up was a Pomarine, followed by Bonxies, then another Pomarine, then Arctics and, eventually, a splendid adult Long-tailed Skua. Two of the Pomarine Skuas circled so low overhead that they must have felt the blast of heat from the ship’s funnels. The totals were: Bonxie 6, Pomarine 4, Arctic 3, Long-tailed 2. The first Long-tailed Skua might still have had streamers but the second did not. Both adults (and a streamer-less adult seen several days ago) had developed scattered dusky blotching high on the chest and side of the face. This must be the onset of winter plumage. The effect, at distance, can suggest a breast band and might spark thoughts that the bird is not a Long-tailed Skua and is, instead, an Arctic? Few observers seem to be aware of the blotching. Never mind. The combination of unicoloured grey underwings and belly (including all of vent) is characteristic. So too the merged transition of grey belly to small white chest. As I said to others watching the bird with me, in plumage and structure adult Long-tailed Skua resembles an anorexic Peregrine. All agreed. Other passers-by today were: Blue Fulmar (fourth of trip), Fulmar 40, LBBG 3, Gannet 6, Arctic Tern 8, Great Shearwater 5, Sooty Shearwater 1, Manx Shearwater 8. Once again, all Manx Shearwaters were powering along and seemed to be saying, “South America here I come.”
Manx Shearwaters. Some floating plastic rubbish appeared in the wake of the ship at just before dinner. A sad sight but there was a silver lining: Dermot saw a Wilson’s Petrel pitter-pattering over it in the off chance that something was edible. Sauce bottles were among the detritus, so perhaps the Wilson’s had been attracted by the smell? A Fin Whale surfaced just behind the boat at 2115hrs. Several times today I saw blows that were put down to Fin Whales. No hydrophones were operational due to all the cable hauling. Probably, they would have confirmed the whales’ identity. Day 12: Sunday 30 August A parade of seabird glitterati kicked off with an adult Sabine’s Gull in full summer plumage. After that, it was like watching an encore of the last fortnight’s highlights. There were adult Pomarine Skuas (ten), Long-tailed Skuas (two adults), two more Sabine’s Gulls, three apiece of Great and Sooty Shearwaters, a few Manx Shearwaters, six Bonxies including the only juvenile of the trip, three Arctic Skuas and then a mint condition Blue Fulmar.
Pomarine Skua.. Heavy rain closed everything down around 1800hrs but not before a final Pomarine Skua lumbered by. Its sinister bulk slunk off into the gathering gloom, disappearing enigmatically like a U-boat into the grey of the North Atlantic. Lost to mist, it left you there, on your own, marvelling at the mysteries of this vast watery wilderness. Anthony
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