Yeah definitely in the GOM. Climbing up in the derrick there would just be individual wings or a head on the catwalks. Occasionally a bird part would fall just fall to the deck. Figured it was the smaller birds that got blown offshore or followed supply boats out from Louisiana that became the victims of the hawks. The gruesomeness definitely freaks you out a little.
Would any of you, who runs routinely do long-distance travels be interested to keep me updated about your bird sightings offshore? Any message to birdsonboats@web.de would be greatly appreciated.
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Nah. Songbird of some type, wren or sparrow, I guess.
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I’ve often wondered about what happens to our little offshore hitchhikers. I’m excited you are doing this study & I’ll email pictures when I think about it but honestly kind of hesitant about giving lat, long, dates & vessel name. I say this because some countries & organizations could use this information to fine & delay vessels from entering/departing ports. It would freak the master/C.M of my vessel out if they discovered their crew were sending pictures, exact departure & arrivals dates & coordinates to some guy off the internet. I’ll keep it vague.
Except for submarines it’s pretty easy for anyone to keep up with vessels whether government or private. Tell him about the birds for goodness sakes just tell him they landed on the Mayflower or Titanic or whatever on such and such a day.
I think birds at sea are a nice distraction. We were about 300 miles off the west coast of Central America in a moderate storm and I found a bird exhausted in a fuel containment. Looked like a mourning dove but with web feet. We gave the little guy water over a week. Some tried to feed him but he wouldn’t eat nor did he get strong enough to fly away. Later I found his kind live off algae, had we known at the time we would have scooped some up for him. He died as we turned towards the canal. We gave the little fellow a proper burial. Weird the things you do at sea.
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I’m not interested in the name of the vessel nor any departure dates, only the dates where birds were present 
You could always just delay sending me the information until you’ve reached harbour.
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Sounds reasonable enough.
Probably no new or useful info here, but in the late 70’s I worked for an oilfield service company offshore GOM. I remember one storm that happened during my hitch on a semi sub drilling rig. At some point I was on deck and realized that the rig was covered with small birds of various types who had lit on seemingly any structure that would hold them. When I say covered, I’d say maybe hundreds of birds, but not thousands. And clearly they were not just sparrows or blackbirds, many were colorful and unfamiliar looking. All of us on the rig eventually decided that these birds must have been “swept up” sort of en masse by the weather disturbance involving the storm, and carried from somewhere in South or Central America, eventually finding refuge on the rig. Any port in a storm as it were. It was pretty amazing at the time.
We get a few of those Sparrow type birds in the Gulf of Mexico. Unfortunately many of them die. Even after we give them water On our Tug barge unit it takes us 3 and a Half days from Texas to Tampa. Many of the birds already seem exhausted for the don’t move around much after getting on the boat.
In 1987 I was 3rd Mate on a 90,000-ton tanker shuttling crude oil from St. Lucia to the Hess refinery in St. Croix. After I was relieved one night at midnight, the 12 to 4 watch ran into a huge swarm of migrating canary-type birds (one of the ABs referred to them as “Tweetie Birds”.) The swarm was so dense that the AB on the bridge wing on lookout, ran into the wheelhouse to stop getting hit by the birds. Sad to say, in the morning light, just below any of the structure on the weather decks were thousands of corpses of the tiny birds. It required a good deal of cleaning and washing down to clear them up, which was un-welcome on a run that was only 18 hours, dock to dock.
As I wrote earlier, it’s rather common for Ceylon Crows to use ships to colonize new areas, but the impacts on native flora and fauna are very negative, so shooting them is sensible for wildlife conservation even if it may seem contradictory at first
Hitchhikers from along the US coast are very expected as this are the directions in which many birds migrate. If you ever want someone to identify the birds for you, i’m your man
@ITOIL: Yes big birds such as pelicans and swans can be very stubborn ones. Sorry birds were such an annoyance to you 
@PDCMATE: Those birds that would take ownership of your crown were very likely Peregrine Falcons. I’ve read quite a few accounts of them travelling and (supposedly even nesting) on ships and scattering all kinds of prey remains on them.
@BeerCaptain: Cool story. If you ever have any other birds hitch rides with you (especially sparrows and other small birds) you can always contact me to learn more about them
@SeaEagle: I can confirm your observations about Cattle Egrets. They wander a lot and like to land on ships all over the world. Any idea what species of Owl it might have been? Any more detailed description or pictures? Could it have been a Short-eared Owl or Northern Saw-whet Owl?
@tengineer1: Sounds like a Storm Petrel of some kind, perhaps Leach’s Storm Petrel or some kind of Shearwater? They are offshore birds, but very clumsy on land and ships, so putting them back into the water would be what I’d do.
@Allgonquin and Seago: I’ve seen pictures of such events, they’re called “fallouts” among ornithologists and can consist of tens of thousands of birds of all kinds of species. Warblers are most prevalent among them in the GOM region, I believe. It’s truely stunning to see such an event unfold, your conclusions seem correct to me, though sadly many birds die in these events
Someone say birds…
So why is the term “crow’s nest” used?
Very impressive video. I’m seeing Flesh-footed Shearwaters, Northern Fulmars and the occasional Black-legged Kittiwake, so I’m guessing this is off the Japanese coast
Video from Bering Sea, Alaskan waters. An “oil slick” of birds following us continuously while processing.
Oops, they’re all dark-morph Northern Fulmars. Where I live (in Germany) we don’t have dark-morph Fulmars, only light morphs. That explains, why I had trouble fitting bill and leg colour with any Ardenna species…
Truely impressive
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