White Birds on the Chesapeake?

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Hang 4

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Flew over the Chesapeake Bay Sunday on the way from RYY to GON. Excellent day with 30kt tailwind and totally clear sky. Over the bay east of the SFRA near Patuxent NAS there were large clusters of white objects in the bay. I was at 7,500, so couldn't see what they were. My best guess was birds.

Any pilots from that area know what I was seeing?
 
Dunno but flying back home the other day, on downwind just about to turn base I saw a massive swirly tornadoey looking pack of wild birds heading towards the final approach path. It looked like a tornado, I sht u not. Told tower I was gonna extend downwind due to birds, but the swarm moved very quickly across final and out of the way. As I landed, tower asked me if I saw any other birds in the area, and if I knew what kind of birds they were. I was like ‘whaaaaaat?!?’ I don’t know one type of bird from another. They were just birds that were in my way.
 
White pelicans?
They’re flocking in the Gulf now - dunno about that far north.
 
Trumpeter Swans likely if you didn't see 500 of them in a flock. Big flock would have been snow geese.
 
The Chesapeake region is known for thousands of birds that migrate from Canada during the winter months.....It could be anything.
 
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Maybe just seagulls??? They usually can still be found there all year round. I've seen them pretty high up.
 
Smaller white birds would be terns or sandpipers. But unless they were clustered, I doubt you saw them from 7500’.

Seagulls can be quite large, maybe half the size of a swan.
 
They were there on the return leg today. My best guess is snow geese. I’ll post a photo when I get home
 
I used to fly guys doing Mute Swan surveys - but there are a gazillion water fowl in the bay area, and some are resident all year now. . .
 
Loons turn white and go to the ocean in the winter. About the size of a small goose. Don't know if they're around the Chesapeake though.
 
We were at 7,500', so not very sharp picture. I'd guess this was about 50 to 100 yards long. Maybe 500 to 1,500 birds. Saw about 10 of these blobs in the Patuxent NAS area.

_KFS4443.jpg
 
I think they might be schools of menhaden not birds. Omega Protein has a location in Reedville, VA. Somewhat controversial in the area, they use aircraft to spot the schools, call in the boats which harvest them in mass quantities. Seems to be hurting the striped bass population among other fisheries.
 

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gdwindowpane said:
I think they might be schools of menhaden not birds. Omega Protein has a location in Reedville, VA. Somewhat controversial in the area, they use aircraft to spot the schools, call in the boats which harvest them in mass quantities. Seems to be hurting the striped bass population among other fisheries.
Click to expand...

Yes its a problem when someone comes in a stripmines a resource. It hurts the whole ecology. Menhaden aren't very tasty, but they're used in a ton of different products from lipstick to catfood. And everything else that lives in the area eats them. I think just this past year they've finally introduced some limits in the catch size. Still too big, but its a start.

I've seen schools of them off the NH coast. Very cool to see from a boat, about half a football field sized school skimming just below the surface.
 
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