Mary Scott runs BirdingAmerica.com. This website has photo essays on birds and birding around America. Join Mary as she tours the great birding spots of the Americas, including wildlife refuges and sanctuaries and little-known habitats.

The following article and photos © Mary Scott

It was a last minute decision to run down to Virginia Beach for a pelagic trip. I was having my usual luck with the fall warbler migration -- none, and it was time for a change of pace. So, I loaded up and headed south, and when the alarm went off at four the next morning I was ready.

It's a long run into birdy waters from Virginia Beach, Virginia. Unlike trips out of North Carolina, where two or three hours will get you to the Gulf Stream, from Virginia Beach you've got to get out about sixty-five miles (which is five or more hours running at top speed) before you've got a chance of seeing much of anything. Then, you're not in the Gulf Stream, but you are in water that's deep enough to support the kind of birds we were looking for.

We left the dock a little after five, and headed out in darkness. After four hours of nothing, we saw a couple of Common Terns.

An hour later we found a Bridled Tern floating on a log, and then things really picked up. A Pomarine Jaeger came by for chum, an Audubon's Shearwater lifted off the water close to the boat, and then we found rafts of Cory's and Greater Shearwaters in frenzied feeding over schools of fish. We were out about seventy miles, moving towards a new raft of birds, when this tiny flash of green zoomed past us low over the water. A warbler!

The little thing kept circling the boat, and people started trying to pish it in. It was flying so low and fast that all we could see was its green back, and no one was quick to identify the mysterious bird. Finally, someone got their binoculars on it, saw its eye ring, and made the call. "Female Common Yellowthroat!" We cleared a section of the rail, and sure enough, she came aboard.

She got her bearings on the rail, then flew inside the cabin, where she appeared to be snagging bugs from inside the window. After a snack, she flew out again over the water, but returned before long.

This time, I put water on the ledge where she'd been feeding. Sure enough, she took a big drink, and flashed her yellow throat.

She went out to the deck and started looking for tidbits there, but when we all ran to see a Manx Shearwater she flew off the stern of the boat .

The next time she showed up, we had several jaegers in sight, and she was looking like a tired, tasty, morsel. So, one of the guys managed to catch her in a large bucket and cover it with a towel. We put her in a quiet corner of the cabin and went out to enjoy the "more common" pelagic species.

At the end of the day, as we neared shore, we released her. The pelagic Common Yellowthroat had made it back to land. It seems so amazing that she found us, the only boat out there. I hope she was the only warbler at sea!

Mary Scott

Eds: It is not too uncommon to come across landbird migrants whilst on a pelagic. Sometimes they outnumber the seabirds if it's a quiet pelagic! Enterprising birders in California often set out to sea with small potted plants on the deck to entice migrants to stop. Durand, back in the 1960s, described in the journal British Birds, several voyages aboard liners from New York to Southampton on which he commonly encountered migrants 1000 miles or more into the Atlantic. These included such unexpected birds as Ruby-throated Hummingbird buzzing around ship!