Day 1- Dry Tortugas Trip: May 20, 2017. Last night we slept on the boat and took off about 5 AM today. It was pretty rough, and I dashed out of bed to get my meclizine on board and get on deck to get eyes on the horizon. I felt better right away and we had a great breakfast. On the ride out the bird of the day was one nobody IDed confidently until low quality photos reviewed taken by the leader Chris Brown showed it to be a Black-capped Petrel. I got good looks as this bird flew past the boat, and we all misidentified it as another Audubon’s Shearwater, but both Chris and I felt it was different and on review of the photos it was clear that wrong we were
Kay had several lifers today, AUSH, SOTE, BRTE, MABO BRBO and BRNO. At Fort Jefferson on Garden Key the birds were not terribly abundant, but we got 8 species of warblers including Yellow-throated, as well as great looks at Gray Kingbird, and all of the other birds. I did not get onto Cape May Warbler that some others saw. We were forced back to the boat about 4:30 because of heavy rain squalls making use of the skiff unsafe and the dock time for the big boat was used up. A relaxing rest of the day, great soup for dinner, and to bed early hoping for lots of new arrivals in the AM.
Weather disappointments dominated the rest of the trip really. Because of high winds, primarily out of the norteast, we were unable to use the skiff to get on and off the key, so had to use the big boat at the dock. This made us unable to visit the nesting colony of Magnificent Frigatebirds where occasionally a Red-footed Booby has been seen, and the wind also kept the noddys from roosting on posts or visible perches much. We spent a modest effort looking for a Black Booby, but in the wind it was hard even to hold a scope still from the best viewpoint on top of the fort, and few birds were visible from lower vantages. The highlights of the second day were great looks at Black-whiskered vireo, a lifer for Kay and one we had missed on the trip down the keys, an Antillean Nighthawk that was initially flushed from the old officers quarters ruins up to the second floor of the fort. On the second floor we chased it around for a while getting adequate looks to see the cinnamon undertail coverts. Later it was relocated on a tree inside the fort. We had a Chuck-will’s Widow earlier in the day perched low on a tree. My highlight was finding a Swainson’s warbler about 5 PM. We had all just gone out to the picnic table for a snack, and everyone was feeling like we had pretty much seen what there was to see, i.e. less than hoped for, but I went back to once again try the line of sea grape trees for a SWWA. Jeff was also there and we started again at the R side. We watched an Ovenbird, a COYE and a NOWA poking around on the ground trying to get onto a Swainson’s, and I turned to Jeff to suggest we move on when I looked up and right in the middle of the opening between the first two trees standing motionless was a Swainson’s Warbler. I got Jeff on it and we watched as it did a runway show. It slowly turned around, nodded its head to show us its rustier cap, and then just stood there again I looked it over very carefully to make sure I was right on the ID. It was perfect, very large-for-a-warbler straight strong bill, rusty cap over a whitish eyebrow and black eye line, medium brown above with no wing bars, and whitish below without any streaking.
I then asked Jeff to try to stay on it and dashed back to gather the group. Kay was doing a watercolor on the picnic table, and by the time anyone else got back the bird had flown into the trees and despite a 90 minute search by all of us it was not relocated.
We got the news that due to high seas expected slowing our return trip we would not be able to return to Garden Key the next morning, as we would have to leave before daylight to make it back to the dock at the required time so that concluded our stay at the Dry Tortugas. It was overall a very disappointing trip after my incredibly birdy, sunny, and delightful trip in 2005 set my expectations so high. I’d been dreaming of showing Kay this gem of a migrant spot for years, and we both felt a bit let down despite nice accommodations on the boat, great service by the captain and crew, and strong efforts by our leader Chris Brown of Wildside Tours.