493 
November, 1922 
THE BIRDS OF AN OCEAN TRIP 
THERE ARE MANY BIRDS THAT WANDER ACROSS THE HIGH SEAS THAT 
ONE RARELY HAS THE OPPORTUNITY TO OBSERVE FROM THE SHORE 
By JOHN T. NICHOLS 
T O many a passenger, a trip across 
the ocean is at best a monotonous 
affair. “One day you see a ship, 
and then again you ship a sea,” 
and that is about all there is to it. To a 
naturalist who is keenly watchful, every 
such voyage can be a cruise into a little- 
known region, with many interesting 
possibilities. There are birds, for in- 
stance, which wander across the high 
seas that one rarely or never has the 
opportunity to observe from the shore. 
Their movements doubtless follow some 
rule, their presence or absence on a 
given ground depending jointly on the 
seasons and the vagaries of the fish or 
other marine creatures on which they 
feed. But our knowledge to date is too 
scanty to say where and when any given 
kind will be found. 
Sailing from New York for Liverpool 
in early September, 1922, it occurred to 
the writer to jot down the natural his- 
tory incidents of the voyage as he might 
those of some winter cruise in a small 
boat among the Florida Keys. 
A S the liner moved out through the 
Narrows to drop her pilot at Am- 
brose Light vessel a few white tern, or 
mackerel gulls, were seen darting about 
over the waters of the lower bay. Twice 
a black tern came into view, that species 
now in slate-gray and white autumn 
plumage, but differentiable from its 
smaller size and having a peculiarly 
buoyant and irregular flight. An occa- 
sional large herring gull completed the 
quota of inshore sea birds. 
The day was fair, the breeze just 
strong enough from the southeast to 
fleck the ocean with scattered, sparkling 
white-caps. As land faded astern, as the 
gray shadow of the Highlands in the 
west and the white line of Long Island 
beaches to the north faded and disap- 
peared, aside from a single small flock 
of tern, the herring gull was the only 
species of bird in view above the sea. 
For a time the herring gulls increased in 
numbers, the majority of them white 
adult birds with big yellow bills. They 
had probably arrived on these off-shore 
grounds since the close of their nesting 
season along rocky shores of northern 
New England. 
By the time the steward was handing 
about trays with afternoon tea the last 
land had dropped beneath the horizon. 
But the Long Island shore was not far 
away. An able little power-boat, with 
its jib set by way of auxiliary sail, 
crossed close under our big steamer’s 
bows, evidently headed for the narrow 
marsh-bound creek behind the barrier 
sand beach on the south shore, where she 
discharges her catch of the smooth- 
shelled deep-sea scallops at a spot not 
far from the writer’s home and where 
he happens often to have seen the boat 
lying. One of her crew was sitting com- 
A Wilson’s petrel (Mother Carey’s 
chicken) 
fortably in the sun opening scallops and 
tossing their shells overboard. He looked 
up at us grinning. It was an ideal day to 
be fishing on the outer grounds. 
Soon the little boat was lost to view, 
a dot astern. We had gotten beyond the 
beat of the herring gulls also, riding 
steadily into the east over a dark gray- 
green sea, smooth and beautiful as a 
picture, flashing blue to the sun which 
was sinking behind us, but lifeless. 
The water became bluer as we ap- 
proached the point where the continental 
shelf rounds off into ocean depths. The 
touch of the southeast wind was as gen- 
tle as the “Trades.” 
'^HE most desert-stretches of ocean 
are seldom birdless. One order of 
birds in particular, the albatrosses and 
petrels, spend their life wandering over 
wide stretches of sea, seeking the shore 
only for the purpose of laying eggs and 
rearing young. The Wilson’s petrel, or 
Mother Carey’s chicken, and two or 
three shearwaters which belong to this 
group are sometimes to be met with in 
summer close along our shores, but on 
this voyage none of these ocean wander- 
ers were encountered until the second 
day out. With drifting Gulf weed, oc- 
casional little schools of flying fishes 
were seen breaking through the surface 
of the smooth sea, and now and then the 
floating pink and purple bubble of a Por- 
tuguese man-of-war. In the early after- 
noon we crossed a long, narrow band of 
weed extending in a northeasterly and 
southwesterly direction. On other voy- 
ages a similar band has been noted close 
to the capes of the Carolinas, and it has 
proved a good spot for birds. The pres- 
ent case was no exception. 
Immediately west of this point a whale 
spouted several times close by the ship, 
and was seen to roll his long, dark gray 
back out of water. Eor several hours 
east of the same spot birds were almost 
constantly in view, flying close to the 
surface. There. were the little black Wil- 
son’s petrel, with a white spot over its 
tail, which had also been noted earlier 
in the day; the somewhat larger Audu- 
bon’s shearwater, shiny black above and 
white below, and a few of the still larger 
Cory’s shearwater. The first of these 
nests in February in the southern part 
of the southern hemisphere, the second 
nests in the West Indies, the third nests 
on the island groups of the eastern At- 
lantic from the Azores southward. Here, 
just north of the 40th parallel and well 
east of Nantucket, they were gathered 
on a favorable fishing ground within the 
cruising radius of all three. 
So on the third and fourth days of 
this voyage we proceeded eastward over 
smooth summer seas of saphire-blue dot- 
ted with golden weed, the wind, slowly 
hauling to the west. Such is the weather 
the writer has come to expect from re- 
cent voyages. 
I am a fair-weather bird, my lass, a fair- 
weather bird, you know; 
I have eaten my peck of dirty weather, 
long, long ago ; 
Wherever I sail is summer seas where 
gentle zephyrs blow. 
For I am a fair-weather .bird, I am, with 
feathers arranged just so. 
""rWO lone tropic birds were passed, 
some two or three hundred miles 
apart, white like a gull, with orange bill 
and slender elongate feather in the cen- 
ter of the tail. This probably marks the 
northern limit of their occurrence at sea. 
They nest in hollows in the cliffs at 
Bermuda, where they are called longtail. 
The sailors’ name for them is “bos’n- 
bird.” 
In the warmer months of the year 
there is a broad central portion of the 
Atlantic which is almost devoid of sea 
birds, although the kittiwake gull, the 
only gull one is likely to meet with in 
mid-ocean, is found there in small num- 
bers in winter. We were now crossing 
this area, and on the fifth day out, with 
a noon position of 43° 30' N. 40° 40' W., 
not a bird was seen. Heading to the 
northeastward, on a direct great circle 
track for the south of Ireland, the sixth 
day carried the ship beyond the direct 
influence of the Gulf Stream drift. Gulf 
weed became scare and disappeared ; no 
more flying fishes now, and in the after- 
noon the water lost its true blue char- 
acter and became tinged with grayish- 
green. Birds were again plentiful, the 
greater shearwater, which, like the Wil- 
son’s petrel, nests in the southern hemi- 
sphere, now the most numerous species. 
Another morning and low, gray clouds 
were hanging over a calm mirror-like 
sea of dark greenish-gray. Here and 
there a glint of sunlight painted patches 
of bright blue on the surface, or dark 
or light cloud masses were reflected as 
patches of black or silver — color effects 
of rare beauty and seeming unrealness. 
Thirty-six hours later the first coastwise 
lights of Ireland were blinking on the 
horizon in the gathering dusk. 
