Today’s sea watch from Magic Pt, Maroubra (about 10km
south of the Sydney CBD) still produced a good number of birds despite heading
close to the end of the summer seabird season. The winds were moderate south to
south-westerly and ahead of a gustier southerly front later in the evening (if
only it had arrived earlier!).
However, again no unusual seabirds were seen on this occasion,
but a distant all-dark Pterodroma species seen close to the horizon was most
likely a Great-winged Petrel. We generally see more Pterodromas in winter
rather than in the summer months from Magic Pt (last winter produced close to a
thousand on very good day). We should soon see the return of Providence Petrels
off our coast. Fewer Pomarine Jaegers were also seen on this occasion, though David Mitford may have just glimpsed a single Arctic
Jaeger further down the coast.
The species and minimum numbers of sea birds seen from
Magic Pt today were:
Fairy Penguin (1 heard calling below Magic Pt)
Great-winged Petrel (1)
Wedge-tailed Shearwater (200)
Fleshy-footed Shearwater (3)
Short-tailed Shearwater (8)
Fluttering Shearwater (21)
Australasian Gannet (100)
Little Black Cormorant (1)
Great Cormorant (2)
Pied Cormorant (1)
Australian Pelican (1)
Pomarine Jaeger (7)
Silver Gull (300)
Crested Tern (35)
Eastern Reef Egret (1)
Edwin Vella
