Dubai_birder
12-08-2011, 22:29
I had originally planned to do a pelagic on the Saturday but this was changed to the Friday as Simon could also join me then. On Friday morning Khalifa called and told me Abdallah was going out deep sea fishing and asked if we wanted to join. Why not. So we meet up with Khalifa, Steve James and Ahmed and set off at about 3pm north and out to sea. It was slow going at first but we were traveling at a fair old rate. After about 40min’s Simon spotted a Petrel and as we all got onto it, it obviously didn’t have a white rump and in fact looked very brown and big. We all knew we were looking at UAE’s first Swinhoe’s Petrel. We followed it for a while taking a number of pictures. Well pleased we carried on and very soon I located another Swinhoe’s which again gave good views. According to the co-ordinates the first sighting was about 34km’s from shore. We continued on further out for about another 10km and then spent an hour trying to catch some Tuna without luck though we did see up to 5 Flesh footed Shearwaters, 2 Sooty Terns and a number of Wilsons Petrel’s. We gave up fishing and headed back and again Simon spotted a bird in front of the boat which was very different and after a while we were all convinced it was the UAE’s 2nd Jouanin’s Petrel. We followed for a while and the final location puts the bird about 33km off shore. A stunning Pelagic What else is out there. Photos will be posted later with map of sightings
Jouanin’s Petrel 1
Swinhoe’s Petrel 2 (another bird was also seen and was certainly one as well but was not seen very well)
Wilson’s Petrel 39
Flesh-footed Shearwater 5
Sooty Tern 2
Persian Shearwaters 90
Arctic Skua 1
Bridled Tern 50
Sooty Gull 1
Common/WC Terns 50
Jouanin’s Petrel 1
Swinhoe’s Petrel 2 (another bird was also seen and was certainly one as well but was not seen very well)
Wilson’s Petrel 39
Flesh-footed Shearwater 5
Sooty Tern 2
Persian Shearwaters 90
Arctic Skua 1
Bridled Tern 50
Sooty Gull 1
Common/WC Terns 50