Fippenies Ledge is about 73 miles due east of Hampton, 20 miles short of the better known Cashes Ledge (relatively speaking of course).  It is a relatively shallow bank about 230 feet deep.  It is seldom visited by birders because it is seldom visited – period.  The only way to get to either Cashes or Fippennies is to charter a boat or to hop aboard a party fishing boat, which is what I have been doing for the past two years.  Why, I hear you ask?  If I may borrow a phrase from George Mallory, the eminent British Mountaineer, “because it is there”.

Even then, it is rarely visited by fishing boats because it requires an overnight, a bother for a boat captain and an expense for a fisherman (or birder).  Yankee Capts. out of Gloucester is the most regular boat to fish these waters (better fishing than inshore areas of Jeffries Ledge etc.), with whom I have been out several times.  This summer, Eastmans out of Hampton Harbor visited Fippennies for a single overnight, and I didnt miss the chance.

Apart from the fact that “it is there”, I go because the birding potential is greater than that on offer closer to shore, and as it is rarely visited, it follows that we know less about the bird distribution in these areas.  Birds that would normally be rare to extremely rare on Jeffries Ledge or Stellwagen Bank, the two areas north of Cape Cod that are regularly visited by birders, are more likely to be encountered on Fippennies or Cashes.  The best example is Leach’s Storm-petrel, which is near guaranteed on a visit to these areas.  I have also encountered Sabine’s gull, great skua, stercorarius sp., all rare to extremely rare on Jeffries and Stellwagen.  Granted, with water temperatures that reach into the low 70’s, it is highly unlikely to host warm water species that are found in the canyons and along the shelf edge, but hope springs eternal.

Leach's storm-petrel, Fippennies Ledge, August 18 2010

In addition, an opportunity to visit these areas salves the nerves of a land-locked lubber stuck away in the nether regions of the Monadnocks.  Coastal New Hampshire is so far west in the Gulf of Maine that it is bypassed by many migrants, especially shorebirds, larids, and terns (think of white-rumped sandpiper which breeds to the north.  It is a common migrant in coastal sites on the outer Cape, yet is scarce in NH.  Ditto black tern, laughing gull, etc etc).

White-rumped Sandpiper, Fippennies Ledge, August 18 2010

Thus, I visited Fippennies last Tuesday and Wednesday, August 17 and 18, with Eastmans of Hampton.  We departed at 11:30 pm on the Tuesday and returned to dock by 8:30 pm Wednesday.  I love everything about these trips, starting with the smell of the ocean as the car breaks through the NH forest and out onto Hampton Marsh.  I brought a sleeping bag and slept on an open deck on the trip out.  Even though I had Perseid meteorites to count, I couldnt fall asleep.  A near absence of light pollution enabled a great night sky, highlighted by Jupiter shining like a beacon in the south.

The first bird of the day was actually a red-winged blackbird which appeared out of the blue at about 4:30 (actually appeared out of the dark ashy gray). Passerine migration is another fascinating feature of offshore birding trips -boats are a magnet for them.  From there on it was constant eyes to the glass, scanning in all directions.  One can be tempted to let the eyes do the work unaided, comforted in the security that with a vista unobstructed by distracting objects, our eyes will be superhuman in their ability to pick out all birds, near and far.  How wrong.  Even with a flat calm sea, birds snuck up on me, as they always do, and I would have missed many more had I not been vigilant with the bins (I am assuming I missed plenty, an axiom of birding).

Wilsons storm-petrels and leach’s storm petrels were scarce to begin with, perhaps no more than 20 in view around the boat in the morning hours.  But as the day wore on, the numbers grew steadily, until the evening count was perhaps in the 300-400 bird range.  I dont try to do absolute petrel counts on these trips as it is an exercise in futility and pretty meaningless.  Rather, I take point counts, and use these as a baseline, against which I can compare future trips.  For leach’s petrels, I have consistently found that in the summer months they constitute about 10% of the total count, and so it was on Wednesday.  I am especially interested in the range of leach’s petrels in this particular area of the Gulf of Maine.  They are essentially absent from Jeffries Ledge (I have seen them once, a single bird after a storm).  This makes no sense to me, as the conditions on Jeffries Ledge are basically identical to those on Fippennies and Cashes vis a vis water temperature, upwellings, etc.  Thus I made a concerted effort to track them on the return journey to see how long they would remain in the following hordes of petrels.  This was the reason I was excited to go out of Hampton instead of Gloucester – would the chumline on the return journey pull birds back over Jeffries.  As you can see in the map, the answer was a resounding no – the last bird dropped out of the chum line about 20 miles from Jeffries, leaving several hundred wilsons remaining.  I guess I will have to keep going back to find out more.

August 18 2010 Fippennies Ledge

Three other instances are worth mentioning – my first skua on Fippennies and second in the Gulf.  A single distant bird chasing a gannet (the only gannet on Fippennies as it happened).  I was surprised to see one at this time of year.  Distance precluded specific ID.

Second – my life basking shark after countless near misses was brought to my attention when the boat swerved on the return journey.  Its got to be a big fish to cause a 90 foot boat to swerve.  Also, the 10 foot blue shark cruising the boat and snarfing cod straight off the line was comical.

Blue Shark cruising boat for an easy lunch

Third – the aforementioned phenomenon of migration that we in NH just seem to miss.  Five black terns, one white-rumped sandpiper and three pectoral sandpipers out of of 30 shorebirds in total.

Can you identify the four species of birds in this shot?

Back out to Cashes on August 30th.

Total List – high counts only

Cory’s Shearwater – 4

Greater Shearwater – 15

Manx Shearwater – 1

Sooty Shearwater – 0

Wilson’s Storm-petrel – 125 (picked up many more on way back in)

Leach’s  Storm-petrel – 5

Northern Gannet – 1

Semi-palmated Plover – 4

Sanderling – 3

Pectoral Sandpiper – 3

White-rumped Sandpiper – 1

Dowitcher sp (presumed short-billed) – 4

Phalarope – 0

unidentified peep – 3

Stercorarius sp. – 1

Parasitic Jaeger – 1 (imm)

Laughing Gull – 3

Herring Gull – 6

Lesser Black-backed Gull – 1

Great Black-backed Gull – 3

Common Tern – 8

Arctic Tern – 1

Black Tern – 5

Mammals

Minke Whale – 1

Red Bat – 1 (on Fippennies!)

Also

Blue Shark – 4

Basking Shark – 2