This Friday the 13th turned out to be a very "lucky" day! Leaving from South Padre Island on the South coast of Texas aboard the 65ft "Osprey" we headed out at 6am for a day of pelagic birding. The seas were calm which was a stroke of luck after the tropical storm that hit the area a couple of days before. It was a beautiful sunny day with temps around the upper 80's and a light wind.
The first birds to show before getting into the deeper water were some terns including Least, Black, Royal, Forster's and Common, as well as Laughing gulls. Once in deeper water, after about 4 hrs & approximatly 65 miles offshore, the cool birds started to appear! We started off with several Cory's shearwaters, and during the next 4 hrs they were followed by 3 masked boobies, 3 Band-rumped Storm Petrels, 3 Bridled terns and 1 Audubon's Shearwater. Some other migrating birds also paid us a visit including a Chuck-wills widow which tried to land on the railing, a Prothonotary Warbler which looked like a flying lemon as it buzzed back and forth across the boat and finally a Yellow-breasted Chat which was one VERY lucky bird! The Chat appeared and soon landed on the boat where it was caught and held for us to take some great photos and freely took a drink of water out of a bottle cap before it slipped away. However 30 minutes later the Chat was back (the same bird)? This time it landed on the back of the boat but lost its grip and tumbled backwards through the smoke, landing on the water behind us. Well, he wasn't going to survive out there for long so we circled the boat around in an attempt to rescue the bird. Amazingly we found it floating on the waves with its wings spread out & unable to fly because now its feathers were soaked. The bird was scooped up in a bucket held on the end of a rod and bought back onto the boat where it was placed in a towel and put into a box for the remainder of the journey. On shore it was released in very suitable bird habitat where it could gain back its strength and migrate south once again. It may also remain, as some do, in the South tip of Texas during the winter months.
Exiting as all this was this was not the end. Once back into the harbour at around 6:45pm, tired from a long day and ready for a good meal we all had one last surprise - A Brown Booby! It was sitting on the pier with some Brown Pelicans as we pulled in and I'm surprised the boat didn't tip over because we all ran to the one side to get good views! There it was. A bird that has only been recorded a few times far offshore from the Texas coast, it had probably been blown inland by the tropical storm that had just blown in a few days prior. This bird was a lifer for many of the people on the boat including myself. No one could believe it, we were all ecstatic! With a total of 6 lifers I had a great day! Who says Friday the 13th is unlucky? :)
Here's a few snapshots of this trip. I didn't take too many as I didn't have the zoom needed to really get some good shots, although I did miss a few good opportunities! However, here's what I have :)

"Osprey"

This 65-foot boat is fast, reaching speeds of 17-20 knots. It holds 40 people comfortably.