The storm Oscar brought to Madeira island the records of rain ever recorded in Portugal in 24 hours! Nearly 500 litres of rain per square meter in only 24 hours, between the afternoons of Monday 5th and Tuesday 6th of June 2023, made us cancel the 1st scheduled day of pelagic expedition. Then, on Wednesday 7th the southwest winds were blowing at 25 knots with even stronger gusts and waves from the same quadrant with 2 meters which, together with all the debris floating at sea made it impossible to go to the ocean again. So we had only 2 afternoons of Zino's Petrel Pelagic Expedition which were increased to 8 hours, with quite different weather and sea conditions each day:
9th June 2023 - West-southwest wind between 5 and 8 knots and 1 meter waves from west-southwest
On the way to the chumming position the ocean was very empty of seabirds. The trip was much calmer but so was the number of seabirds and bird species observed.
Desertas / Fea's Petrel Pterodroma feae/deserta
Zino's Petrel Pterodroma madeira
7 Lesser Black-backed gull Larus fuscus
9 Yellow-legged Gull Larus michahellis
1 Manx shearwater Puffinus puffinus puffinus - on the way up
3 European Storm petrel Hydrobates pelagicus - 2 at same time on the chum slick
2 Common tern Sterna hirundo
Wilson's Storm-petrel Oceanites oceanicus
Today more Bulwer's Petrel Bulweria bulwerii were observed than Cory's shearwater Calonectris borealis and unfortunately we missed the Madeiran Storm petrel Oceanodroma castro...
8th June 2023 - 17 knots of west wind and 2 meter waves from west-southwest
First we tried a chumming spot for Desertas' Petrels and then went to the Zino's Petrel spot. On the way to the 2nd spot we watched plenty of Cory's shearwater Calonectris borealis and dozens of Manx shearwater. Bulwer's Petrel Bulweria bulwerii were also present but with much lesser numbers than the shearwaters.
5 Pterodromas sp.
2 Desertas / Fea's Petrel Pterodroma feae/deserta
5 Great shearwater Puffinus gravis
4 Zino's Petrel Pterodroma madeira - 2 of them flew together by the chum for a couple of minutes
2 European Storm petrel Hydrobates pelagicus
2 Common tern Sterna hirundo
11 Yellow-legged Gull Larus michahellis
7 Lesser Black-backed gull Larus fuscus
Parasitic Jaeger Stercorarius parasiticus - a juvenile dark morph
Common Bottlenose dolphins Tursiops truncatus
Short-beaked common dolphins Delphinus delphis
Portuguese man-of-war Physalia physalis
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