Cape May Pelagic – Black-legged Kittiwakes

Famous for their massive nesting colonies throughout the arctic, the Black-legged Kittiwake is a common winter visitor off the east coast of North America. Occasionally, Black-legged Kittiwakes can be spotted from land but the best way to find them is to take a boat offshore and throw out some chum. Luckily that is exactly what we did on the February 4th Cape May pelagic, and it was quite successful. At first, the birds were acting difficult and we were having trouble getting even Herring Gulls to follow the boat, but once we were able to lure some gulls in we would have kittiwakes and fulmars pass the back of the boat fairly often. Below are some photos I took of the closer kittiwakes – the lighting was only good for the first adult that flew close past the boat and then it got pretty dark and dreary, so excuse the quality of some of the shots.

Black-legged Kittiwake - adult (Photo by Alex Lamoreaux)

Black-legged Kittiwake - adult (Photo by Alex Lamoreaux)

Black-legged Kittiwake - immature (Photo by Alex Lamoreaux)

Black-legged Kittiwake - immature (Photo by Alex Lamoreaux)

Black-legged Kittiwake - adult (Photo by Alex Lamoreaux)