June 22 Update: The July trip is now FULL, with a waiting list. There are still some spaces available for the September trip, but the trip is filling up rapidly.
As some of you know, I thoroughly enjoy the deep water Texas pelagic trips and have been on just about all the ones that have gone out the past few years. We've had some great birds including Greater Shearwater, Long-tailed Jaeger (multiple times), and Red-billed Tropicbird (multiple times). Last year we had a large mixed flock right off the continental shelf which included a Brown Booby and a Brown Noddy. And, of course, I still get goose bumps when I remember the wonderful Yellow-nosed Albatross from 2003!!
I've made plans for TWO trips this year - one in the summer (better for storm-petrels) and one in the fall. The dates are:
Saturday July 19th
Saturday September 6th
These trips leave from the southern tip of South Padre Island, aboard the Osprey. The good folks at the Osprey have been involved with Texas pelagics for several years and their captains are familiar with where we need to go and also are quite good at spotting birds with us. These are all-day trips, leaving the docks at around 6am, and returning around 12 hours later. We motor out to deepwater (takes a couple hours to get there), spend the next several hours working the area just off the shelf, and then return back to dry land by around 6pm. We are planning on having four leaders per trip which should include myself, Petra Hockey, Brad McKinney, Dwight Peake and/or Randy Pinkston. I've been out on the Gulf with each of these folks multiple times and their passion for birds and pelagics is on par with my own.
As everyone is aware, fuel cost have gone up quite a bit in the last year and thus the cost of the trip has also increased. These are break-even, labor-of-love trips, where the cost per participant is only enough to cover the boat charter, tips for the crew, and allow the leaders a free boat trip (but not cover any of their other expenses). To make this happen, the cost of the trip this year is:
$171/person
For an idea of what sort of birds can be expected on these trips, please refer to Brad McKinney's "Seabirds of the Lower Texas Coast", which can be found on my website.
If you are interested in joining us, please send me a note (ecarpe@gmail.com) and I'll get you more details. July 19th is coming up sooner than you think and I'd like to hear from you sooner rather than later so I can make sure that this trip fills up in time.
