Another Day Away from Politics

For the first time since late May, I took a few hours today and "got away from it all." After reading the papers this morning I headed down to the Boston waterfront and caught a whale watch tour out of the harbor with the New England Aquarium folks, which cruised out 25-30 onto the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary. Most of the folks were focused just on the whales, but I was looking forward to some sea-birding as well. Since I've lived my entire life in upstate New York, my opportunity to observe seabirds has been minimal, and I'm really looking forward to the chance for some time on and near the ocean during my time on the coast.

Since I've never really 'watched' seabirds before, I'm not particularly good at it. And they usually don't make any noise, which can be very helpful on land; its absence is frustrating out on the water. And many of them look completely different as juveniles than they do as adults, and even as adults some start looking different now than they do in the early part of the summer. In other words, I was generally very much out of my league today. I need practice. I did catch the usual suspects (double-crested cormorant, herring gull, ring-billed gull, great black-backed gull, common tern, laughing gull) and added a new species (Wilson's storm-petrel). I probably saw other things and didn't know them. I'll have to spend some serious time out on the water and with the books to make sure I'm doing as well as I can - and if any of you've got some good sea-birding tips, please, pass them along!

We did of course see some whales as well - minkes, fins, and several humpbacks. A mother-juvenile pair of fin whales was pretty spectacular - a juvenile fin whale is certainly not very "baby-like"! All seemed to be healthy and enjoying the rich feeding grounds.

The day was a perfect one: very clear and sunny, but not too hot. I've got myself a nasty sunburn (my hat wouldn't stay on in the wind and I clearly didn't put on enough sunscreen), but other than that, I had a very enjoyable time. It was pretty good to get away and not think about the frustrations of the political world for a while!