Madeira day three: the final pelagic

Most of the team either slept, lazed around, edited photos, drank coffee or worked for the morning, before heading to Machico for lunch. Then it was onto the boat for our third and final pelagic trip. The plan was to once again visit the waters to the north of the island, in the hope of further Zino's encounters, although getting out to the chumming spot proved challenging in the headwind and choppy seas.

One of the first birds to attend the slick was a Wilson's Storm Petrel, which was a clearly different bird to the one seen on Wednesday. This was followed shortly after by a White-faced Storm Petrel, and both went on to linger for over two hours, well into the evening, often giving terrific views side by side.

In fact we were thankful for the storm petrels, for there were long periods of little activity for the first couple of hours. After 7 pm, things quickly improved as the numbers of Cory's and Bulwer's visibly increased and the odd Pterodroma put in an appearance. In total we logged three Desertas and two Zino's Petrels, with a further bird going unidentified due to distance and brevity. Both Zino's were photographed and both clearly proved to be different to those seen the previous days. This made it five Zino's for the week; a very respectable total.

Zino's Petrel at sea north of Madeira, 22 June 2018

A couple of large skuas had been putting in fleeting and distant views all afternoon, but eventually one came close enough to ascertain that it was an immature Great Skua. The other remained unidentified, but was presumably also a Great rather than anything more exotic. We also encountered small pods of Common and Bottlenose Dolphins before returning to Machico for 10 pm.

Great Skua at sea north of Madeira, 22 June 2018