Natural Selection

I wasn’t expecting a lot from the journey between Nova Scotia and New York. Whilst I was in the final spin class of the cruise there were however lots of birds viewable from my bike. These clearly included a lot of large shearwaters and American Herring Gulls. When I was back on the balcony with binoculars things were much more pedestrian, but did include both Cory’s and Great Shearwaters as well as the AHGs and some Gannets.

Eventually Jane and I had nice views of some Common Dolphin that came in to bow ride. I also saw a Great Skua, following bird flu devastation of numbers this was the first bird I’ve seen this year other than the South Polar candidate a few days back. I was much happier this one was a Bonxie.

The day took an interesting turn when some rain began to fall and a few passerines began to appear on the boat. First up was a presumably new Buff-bellied Pipit, but like its predecessor it was camera shy. Then a Mourning Dove tried to land on the upper deck before settling in a handy circular gap below.

I decided to go up to the running track / sun lounger deck and see if anything was taking refuge there. I don’t know what I was expecting but I was gobsmacked when a Grey Catbird appeared on the track. Unfortunately I’d left my camera in my room because of the wet condition. When I returned with it the Catbird was thankfully still present, probably partly because the rain had emptied the exposed decks of sun worshippers.

There was also the Dark Eyed Junco included as the cover photograph to this blog. Another picture of this follows.

There was certainly at least one bird zipping round the decks I didn’t identify, but one which was more straightforward was this Cedar Waxwing occupying a similar niche refuge to the Mourning Dove.

This mini-fall was an enjoyable experience for me. I hope the encounter with the boat was beneficial to the birds; the vessel was heading in the right direction for their migration so hopefully they got some needed respite and were able to leave when the weather lifted.