Shorebirder

For the past couple months, Ian Davies and I had been eyeing this week for a little summer Cape Cod birding adventure. The feasibility of this plan would depend largely on the weather, as I wanted to trailer the boat to the Cape for access to pelagic waters and Monomoy NWR. After a rather uncertain and oft-changing forecast thanks to a stationary front passage, a brief weather window opened for the second half of the week. Julian Hough was free to join me for the mini vacation, so we left CT on Tuesday evening. Wednesday was spent shorebirding; Ian had to work that day, but Pete Trimble and Phil Rusch filled out the boat. Thursday found us rained out, but we regrouped for a full Friday on the water. At sunrise on Friday the 12th, Ian, Julian, and Pete & Jeremiah Trimble and I left the harbor and headed around the tip of Monomoy to the productive waters east of Chatham. I had been out there a handful of times prior between my boat and a friend's, and there has always been at lea

After three years of trying, Dave Provencher and I finally made it to Madeira in search of Zino's Petrel. The pandemic had postponed our 2020 and 2021 bookings, but we were not denied this time around. We spent about 5 days on the island, three afternoons of which were at sea. The rest of the time was spent casually exploring from sea level to 6,000+ ft peaks. We connected reasonably easily with the island's few endemic species and subspecies, plus a few other target birds. Madeira is a small island whose jagged peaks jut out of the ocean like the tip of an iceberg. Information about the island is readily available online, so I will spare the repetition here. Though I will add one thing that surprised me...Madeira is very affordable. Cheap, even. At least once you get there. Flights seemed to run $650-800 return from the northeast US, but once on-island, our stay did not set us back much. The rental car cost $215 for the duration, our downtown Machico hotel room was $55/night,