Birds at sea! Between Tampa and Cozumel, Mexico

[csziggy]

We just got back from our cruise from Tampa to Cozumel and back. We didn't see many birds of course - a few sea gulls and terns close to the coasts, most of them in Tampa Bay. But we had two sightings that we are puzzled about.

The first was during the nights - tiny little birds flitting around catching insects attracted by the ship's lights. We saw them several nights, pretty late, but early on the morning we we docking at Cozumel one landed on the rail of the next door balcony. I pored through our bird books - and now that we are home, online - and I think it was a female tree swallow.

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Tree_Swallow/id

I have to think that they have colonized the ship! Before we arrived at Cozumel two young women asked us (since we were wearing some of bird shirts) what they should do with a chick they had found on their balcony, so there must be nests on the ship. None of the ship's crew knew anything about birds and didn't care.

The other sighting was in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico. I didn't see it but my husband saw a large bird coasting with the ship. He first thought it was an albatross but by the time he called my attention to it, it was out of sight - too bad since I was carrying my camera and might have gotten a shot of it.

When we got back he searched our bird books and decided it was NOT an albatross so we searched online. We think it might have been a black capped petrel or diablotín (or “little devil”) - which would have been very significant. They are very rare, nest in only a few locations in the mountains of Hispaniola, and mostly cruise the skies in the Caribbean and above the Gulf Stream east of the southern US (the yellow spots are their known nesting areas):

https://abcbirds.org/bird/black-capped-petrel/

Their range does extend to the southern tip of Cuba where Hurricane Michael hit very hard so maybe the one my husband saw was blown out of his normal paths?

[getagrip_already]

1. we routinely see those birds 100 miles out at sea....

They will frequently land on the boat to rest. We give them some fresh water and bait scraps. They keep us company for a while then take off.

What amazes me is when flies find us. Not house flies; these are the greenhead horseflies. The kind that bite. PITA!