birding-aus

Chathan Island Albatross off Australia

To: Daniel Mantle <>, "" <>, "" <>, Mike Carter <>
Subject: Chathan Island Albatross off Australia
From: David James <>
Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2011 01:30:18 -0700 (PDT)
Dan, there have been at least 5 previous records of the "CIA" from Tas, all 
adults
 
1) An adult was present in the colony at Albatross Island from Jan 83 (not 82) 
to 1986 (Bothers & Davis 1985). A photo of this bird is published in Lindsey 
(1986). 
 
2) A different adult was present in the Albatross Island  colony from 1985 
until Sept 1994 (Brothers in Reid & James 1997).
 
3) Tim Reid and I saw an adult CIA near The Mewstone off southern Tasmania in 
Feb 1995 (Reid & James 1997).
 
  
Bothers, N.P. & Davis, G. 1985.  Bird observations on Albatross Island, 1981 to 
1985. Tas Bird Report 14: 3-9. 
Harper, P.C., & Kinsky, F.C. 1978 Southern Albatrosses and Petrels: An 
Identification Guide, 2nd Ed, Duval, Cleaveland.  
Lindsey, T. 1986. The Seabirds of Australia, Angus & Robertson/NPIAW, Sydney. 
Reid, T. & James, D.J. 1997. The Chatham Island Mollymawk (Diomedea eremita) in 
Australia. Notornis 44: 125-8.
 
 
Incidently, the classic Harper & Kinsky 1978 is available at (without the 
waterproof cover, alas):
 
http://books.google.com.au/books?id=LPkfq0b8YN0C&pg=PP5&lpg=PP5&dq=harper+and+kinsky&source=bl&ots=Xo6eWNwsA_&sig=esJPUzY2DUbvutoYnDL97f6rfko&hl=en&ei=vdRlToymHIKriAfGuKSKCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
 
 
David James, 
Sydney

==============================

From: Daniel Mantle <>
To: ; 
Sent: Monday, 5 September 2011 5:33 PM
Subject: Chathan Island Albatross off Australia


Thanks Roger,

I can reply as I am still stuck at Melbourne Airport!! I am pretty sure there 
was also a Chatham Albatross off Wollongong in that mega-year (1999). I wish I 
had been living in Aus then! Your 2002 records confirm what some of the others 
thought - that the Gong had scored two eremita over the years. I still think 
Tas has had a few too, but wouldn't even know where to start looking for these 
records. There are some great seabird records on the various marine biology 
databases, especially from the research vessels leaving Tas for the Antarctic. 
But I guess many of these have not been submitted to BARC. At the time of the 
Great Shearwaters earlier this year (I think I forgot to post this), I could 
remember seeing a record of an earlier sighting of multiple Great Shearwaters 
off Tas (still in Aus waters) from a survey vessel. Maybe three birds if my 
memory is correct.

Cheers Dan

> From: 
> > Date: Mon, 5 Sep 2011 17:10:35 +1000
> > Subject: [Birding-Aus] Chathan Island Albatross off Australia
> 
> Daniel,
> 
> You asked about the occurrence of Chatham Island (Shy) Albatross off
> Australia. I am aware of a bird seen off Wollongong on July 12, 2002 and
> another (or maybe the same bird?) seen from the Halicat off Sydney on August
> 12, 2002. The latter was the only T. cauta eremita that I have seen in about
> 200 trips off Sydney (and the only one that I am aware of offshore Sydney)
> so they are definitely not very commonly occurring!
> 
>  
> Cheers
> 
> Roger McGovern
> 
> ===============================
> 
> Dan asked about the frequency of Chatham Albatross T. c. eremita in 
> Australian waters. HANZAB vol.1 (1990) described them as 'occasional' off SE 
> Australia. Back in the 1960/70's Peter Lansley, Geoff Price & I saw an adult 
> from Cape Schanck, a headland in central Victoria and I photographed a 
> sub-adult from a fishing boat off Eden in southern NSW. Around that time an 
> adult was living in the colony of Shy Albatross T. c. cauta on Albatross 
> Island off NW Tasmania in Bass Strait. I seem to recall another that was seen 
> on a Portland pelagic.

Mike Carter

4) Nigel Brothers observed an adult  at sea off Pedra Branca in March 1995 
(Brothers in Reid & James 1997). 
 
5) Tim Reid saw an adult from a longline tuna boat on the continental slope 
south of Tas in June 1996 (Reid & James 1997).
 
Whether the birds at sea and ashore were the same or different is difficult to 
be sure of. 
 
I recall there was a record soon after we published, from NSW if I'm not wrong, 
probably in the 1999 bumper year. I think it was Eden, not the Gong, but my 
memory could well be wrong here. 
 
when we published in 1997 we did not find any mainland records. We obviously 
overlooked the Cape Schanck and Eden records mentioned by Mike Carter. I'm not 
sure why, because in the early 1980s Tim and I both knew of the Cape Schanck 
record. Whoops. Anyway, Mike, I tentatively suggest it was not the 1960s when 
you saw one off Cape Schanck because Peter and Geoff were probably still in 
primary school then. Was it after the publication of Harper & Kinsky (1st ed 
1974, 2nd ed. 1978) perhaps? As noted above the Albatross Island birds first 
appeared much later, in 1983
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