Cheryl Anderson

Special to The News-Press

It is probably best to start this story with the definition of "pelagic." The word refers to things that live in the open ocean. The term is most often associated with animals living in the water, such as fish and mammals, but it can also describe birds that spend almost all of their time off shore, out at sea.

Most people, even fisherman who spend a great deal of time in the open ocean, are unaware of these unique birds. Imagine a bird that rarely ever sets foot on land, only doing so for the brief nesting season!

Since my husband recently acquired his first truly off-shore capable boat, he was ready to test his skills on a long trip in the Gulf. Some of my stalwart birding friends were ready to join him on a second boat — a 250 mile round trip cruise to " W" Tower just north of the Dry Tortugas.

We left the Sanibel bridge at 6 a.m. Aug. 17. There were four people — Keith Laakkonen, Ruth Parks, Captain James Collier and me — on our recently acquired 1985, 30-foot Intrepid, the Ginger Lee. There were seven more on the Kaity May II. The only equipment the birders needed were binoculars and cameras.

The seas were 1-3 feet going out. Our first stop was the "L" tower, which was about a 3.5 hour run at 28 mph. The boats ran about a half mile apart, always within sight of each other. This proved to be a good plan, not just for safety, but for the ability to scan a much larger part of the ocean for birds. The first tower was disappointingly empty of birds except for the magnificent frigate birds. These are fantastic pelagic birds, but are easily and often seen from our shoreline.

Over the next few hours we developed a spotting style that increased our effectiveness. The spotters pointed to the direction of the bird in flight. Not easy to do from a moving boat deck, but we all got the hang of it with a little practice. The captain turned the boat to follow the bird in whatever direction the bird was headed. These are fast birds that often fly long distances, so skill was needed just to keep up. We would then radio the other boat and announce what we thought we had seen so they could make a course over to us to see the bird. The photographers then tried to take photos from the moving deck.

We saw bridled terns, sooty terns, brown noddies, band-rumped storm petrel, and brown and masked boobies . All of these are pelagic birds rarely seen close to land outside the breeding season. We also saw many land birds crossing the Gulf waters during their fall migration south. I had never seen this before and was amazed by their bravery and stamina.

One truly amazing sight was the pods of dolphins. These guys were in the cleanest, bluest water I had seen in a long time. They followed our boat, jumping and showing off their swimming skills. The louder we whooped, the more they jumped. The dolphins were swimming in large schools of flying fish. The flying fish presented a dilemma for the birders — birds or fish? They are fish for sure but some of the flights were bird worthy.

The next day, when our birding photos were posted on a Facebook birding site, expert birders from other parts of Florida stated that what we thought was a masked Boobie was actually a rare red-footed booby, only seen in the Gulf a few times in the past 50 years! We were so glad for the great photo. It was the experience of a lifetime for me.