birding-aus

NSW Maroubra (Sydney) sea watch - Saturday 4th March 2006

To: "Birding-aus" <>
Subject: NSW Maroubra (Sydney) sea watch - Saturday 4th March 2006
From: "Edwin Vella" <>
Date: Sun, 5 Mar 2006 11:42:20 +1100

David Mitford, Stuart Pickering and I had a reasonable sea watch yesterday afternoon (Saturday 4th March 2006) from Magic Pt in Maroubra (approx. 10km south of Sydney CBD). With the severe weather present over recent days much further up the coast (particularly around SE QLD), we thought there may have been a chance for some interesting tropical sea birds making their way further south but this was not to be the case. Winds around Maroubra were a light south-easterly with the seas fairly calm closer inshore not driving many shearwaters within a km from shore apart from a few feeding groups.

 

We did see a reasonably close Long-tailed Jaeger fly past, a good number of Fleshy-footed Shearwaters and an adult breeding Caspian Tern (not regularly seen from Magic Pt although regularly present just around the corner in Botany Bay) were our sea bird highlights. However an even better highlight, was seeing 2 pods of FALSE KILLER WHALES (one pod of at least or 6 or 7 individuals and another of at least 4 but probably even more than that) which hanged around for a while. They appeared to be at times charging at their prey (being some descent size fish) and at times leaping out of the water. A few Bottle-nosed Dolphins were also present about the same time we were observing the False Killer Whales. I do recall seeing at least 12 false Killer Whales with Graham Turner from Magic Pt on 20/3/04.

 

A good close encounter with an adult Peregrine Falcon flying past at eye level a few metres in front of us concluded a good afternoon at Maroubra for David and I. We also heard a Lewin’s Rail calling on dusk at its favourite location beside the drain at the southern end of Maroubra beach.  

 

A list of sea birds species and the minimum numbers seen for the afternoon from Magic Pt is as follows:

 

Fairy Penguin (2 heard calling)

Wedge-tailed Shearwater (500)

Fleshy-footed Shearwater (50)

Fluttering Shearwater (4)

Australasian Gannet (200)

Little Pied Cormorant (1)

Little Black Cormorant (2)

Pied Cormorant (1)

Great Cormorant (2)

Arctic Jaeger (3)

Pomarine Jaeger (50)

Long-tailed Jaeger (1)

Silver Gull (300)

Crested Tern (50)

Caspian Tern (1)

 

Edwin Vella

 

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>
  • NSW Maroubra (Sydney) sea watch - Saturday 4th March 2006, Edwin Vella <=
Admin

The University of NSW School of Computer and Engineering takes no responsibility for the contents of this archive. It is purely a compilation of material sent by many people to the birding-aus mailing list. It has not been checked for accuracy nor its content verified in any way. If you wish to get material removed from the archive or have other queries about the archive e-mail Andrew Taylor at this address: andrewt@cse.unsw.EDU.AU