Review of Island Cruises' Isles of Shoals Tour

A detailed trip report and review of The Isles Tour offered by Island Cruises.

I recently had the pleasure of accompanying NH Audubon on their first Tern Colony Tour aboard the Island Cruises ship Uncle Oscar on August 1st, 2009. The Uncle Oscar was captained by Sue Reynolds, who shared her very extensive knowledge of the Lighthouse on White’s Island and the macabre history of Smuttynose Island. The trip was scheduled for just two and a half hours, leaving from Rye Harbor at 7:00 AM.

Slideshow of Isles of Shoals Cruise

Recommended equipment for the Island Cruises Isles of Shoals Tour:

Bug Spray
Good Birding Binoculars
Camera
Sunscreen
Baseball cap or other broad-brimmed hat to shade your eyes
Sensible shoes to prevent slipping on wet docks and decks

We arrived at Rye Harbor around 6:45 AM and the parking lot attendant directed us to the Audubon group who were waiting near the dock. We checked in with Jon Woolf, the trip’s organizer, and waited for the rest of the group to arrive. If you are going to be waiting in the dock area, use a good bug spray; there were literally swarms of tiny biting flies. In the few minutes that we waited, we logged our first few species of the day:

1) Herring Gulls
2) European Starlings (sitting on telephone wires next to the harbor)
3) Double-crested Cormorants
4) Common Eiders (swimming along the harbor shore off to the right)

It was then time to board. The Uncle Oscar holds 16 passengers and was quite roomy with just 13 guests and the two crew members. We were lucky enough to be joined by the well-known New Hampshire birding expert Steve Mirick. Steve is the author of Birding the New Hampshire Seacoast and Great Bay which is available for purchase at NHBirdRecords.org. We could not have asked for a more expert or personable guide. Even as we were leaving the harbor, Steve began spotting and calling out birds to make sure that no one missed a thing. He also enriched the experience by sharing detailed information about the birds and the area throughout the morning.

As the Island Cruises boat Uncle Oscar motored out of the harbor, we spotted:

5) Tree Swallows
6) Barn Swallows

Small groups of each were swooping and gliding low over the harbor waters, dining on flying insects. The morning was sunny and warm and turned out to be very calm although the forecast had predicted 2-4 foot seas. Before we even left the harbor, we had six species on our trip list.
Just after passing through the Rye Harbor breakwaters, we saw our first Wilson’s Storm-Petrel of the day. As Steve Mirick noted, it is unusual to see a Wilson’s Storm Petrel so close to land as they ordinarily remain farther out to sea. Along the way out to New Hampshire’s Isles of Shoals, we added the following to our species list for the day:

7) Wilson’s Storm-Petrel
8) Common Tern
9) Northern Gannet, a juvenile that Jon Woolf estimated to be a third year specimen.
10) Red-necked Phalaropes

As we approached the Isles of Shoals, we could hear the calls of several thousand Terns on and around Seavey Island and White Island. This is the site of the successful Tern Restoration Project which recovered the island from the seagulls and restored it as a safe breeding area for Terns.
While here, we learned more about the Tern Restoration Project and added a number of additional species to our list:

11) Ruddy Turnstones
12) Roseate Terns
13) Arctic Tern (just one)
14) Short Billed Dowitchers
15) A Great Black-backed Gull
16) Black Guillemot

While stopped off of Seavey Island, a Great Black-backed Gull reached up and grabbed a Tern out of the air, and proceeded to swallow it whole, showing us why it was so important to drive the gulls away from the islands as the first step of the Tern Restoration Project.

We also cruised past Star Island, Smuttynose Island, and Lunging Island, where we observed a Double-crested Cormorant breeding colony with some nesting Herring Gulls mixed in. A young harbor seal was spotted on the island as well.

The trip back kept us busy with a number of the small Red-necked Phalaropes playing hide and seek with us in the gentle waves. Back in the harbor again, we added a lone

17) Bonaparte’s Gull

to our species list for the trip for a total of 17 species for the day. Others also saw:

18) Greater Yellowlegs
19) Bank Swallows

For a total of 19, although I did not see those two personally.

The in depth knowledge of the captain, the roomy decks, and the unique nature of the Isles of Shoals tours offered by Island Cruises make it an absolute must for birdwatchers of all experience levels, and even those with no prior experience at all. The short 2-3 hour island tours make this a perfect trip for families with children. The Isles Tour aboard Island Cruises Uncle Oscar is not a whale watch tour, there are other cruise lines for that. Instead, it is a unique opportunity to tour the Isles of Shoals at close range and to observe a number of pelagic birds up close, while learning about the rich and varied history of the Isles of Shoals. At one point we were literally standing with one foot in New Hampshire and one foot in Maine since the Isles are right on the border between the territorial waters of the two states. I have definitely added the Island Cruises Isles Tour to my list of annual bird-watching excursions (although I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find myself there more than once each season).

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