10/06/2026
It's another for the Birds Supporting Birds partnership with the , and these birds have some 2026 record breaking stats to share!
🏈Phil had a homefield advantage and stayed in waters east of South Carolina, moving a bit more inshore where he seems to have found an area to forage. Prior to this year, we have only ever had one bird go south of Cape Hatteras, NC. In 2024, a great shearwater spent a week along the shelf break between Hatteras and the South Carolina border. This would make Phil the farthest south along the eastern seaboard that one of our birds has traveled if it weren't for his own teammate, 🥖Hoagie...
🥖Hoagie decided to break the 2026 record to visit Florida and the Bahamas. He headed southwest on the tailwinds until he was 55 miles (88km) east of Daytona Beach. He slowed down and kept heading south until he was just 22 miles (36km) off the coast of West Grand Bahama, which is a first for our tagged birds and not something that any of us expected! Hoagie then turned back north and spent a day foraging off of West Palm Beach, FL, and is now off the coast of Fort Pierce, FL.
🔔Liberty continued riding the winds of the nor'easter south before stopping to forage in the deep water off the shelf east of Maryland. She headed back north to the Nantucket Shoals the following day, but didn't stay long before moving up Georges Bank, through Franklin and Rodgers Basins, and is now at Cashes Ledge. This appears to be the track of a bird on the move, looking for the most productive feeding grounds.
🦅Franklin moved west and stayed in New York Bight through the rest of the storm. He started moving east and passed over the Nantucket Shoals without stopping. He started to forage in the Great South Channel and then moved onto Georges Bank where he's been for the last three days.
Franklin and Liberty traveled about twice as far as Hoagie and Phil this week (~3200km vs ~1500km). Franklin remains our overall distance leader with over 21,000km (13,000mi) tracked.
🗺: Liam Waters/NOAA
