birding-aus

Nasty Northern Giant Petrels

To: martin cachard <>, "" <>, Kev Lobotomi <>, birding-aus threads <>
Subject: Nasty Northern Giant Petrels
From: Mick Roderick <>
Date: Mon, 4 Nov 2013 17:06:07 -0800 (PST)
In 4 years of pelagics and other seabird surveys off Port Stephens (and 2 off 
Swansea) that I have been running / involved in, we have only recorded SGP on 
one trip (Sept 2012, when we had 2 birds). Mind you, we've only had NGP 5 or 6 
times. Any seawatched GP's that I have been able to confirm to species level 
off Nobby's have all been Northerns too.
 
I'm sure the SGP's were the more commonly encountered of the two when the trips 
were being run by Baxter/Hansbro (from about 2000-2006?) but I don't have that 
info in front of me. 
 
Also, if you checked the SOSSA Monthly Guide before it was given a welcome 
refreshing recently you would have seen that SGP's were more commonly recorded 
off W'gong up to 1999. The guide shows a different story now though (see link 
below, which uses data collected between 2000-2013). 
 
http://www.sossa-international.org/forum/content.php?185-Month-by-Month-Birding-Guide-Wollongong
 
Mick
 
 



On Monday, 4 November 2013 11:20 PM, martin cachard <> 
wrote:
  
hey kev & nik,
going through my (limited compared to u guys) records, Nik's ratio between spp 
is about the same for me too.
maybe this has always been the case?? 
cheers Martin Cachard, Cairns 0428 782 808

> Date: Mon, 4 Nov 2013 03:15:56 -0800
> From: 
> To: ; 
> Subject: Re: [Birding-Aus] Nasty Northern Giant Petrels
> 
> Hi Kev,
> 
> Over the last 6 years I had 3 x more NGPs than SGPs along the East coast 
> (mainly Sydney & Wollongong).
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Nikolas
>  
> ----------------
> Nikolas Haass
> 
> Brisbane, QLD
> 
> 
> ________________________________
>  From: Kev Lobotomi <>
> To: "" <> 
> Sent: Monday, November 4, 2013 4:22 PM
> Subject: [Birding-Aus] Nasty Northern Giant Petrels
>  
> 
> On a few occasions lately I have witnessed how nasty the Northern Giant 
> Petrel can be. Firstly off Port Fairy on shelf on the 27th people aboard the 
> boat had 4 GPs (3 definite Northerns, perhaps 1 Southern) attacking a 
> Short-tailed Shearwater and drowning it. We later went over to check out the 
> corpse floating on the sea. 
> In addition to this I spotted a Northern GP off Cape Nelson yesterday 
> (3/11/13) about 10AM. There were heaps of Short-tailed Shearwaters offshore, 
> some sitting on the ocean. This of course is not unusual at the moment with 
> big wrecks about everywhere in SE Aust. The GP kept flying up to a STS 
> sitting on the water & jumping on it. The STS would either dive under the 
> water & evade that way, or fly off. This it did about 6 times before the NGP 
> actually jumped on a bird which was probably too weak to get away. It then 
> grabbed it and took off with it, then landed and attacked it's belly. The 
> poor shearwater was flaying it's legs and wings around. Eventually you'd 
> expect the NGP to start eating the thing. It did peck at it a bit, but then 
> abandoned the bird (not sure if it was dead, but it would have been mortally 
> wounded) & then proceeded to have a go at several other shearwaters on the 
> water. I got the feeling the NGP was acting like the Grim Reaper &
>  selecting the shearwaters th
> at were ready to die! 
> I have noticed that there have been Northern Giant Petrels hanging around 
> southern Australia (Cape Nelson, Port Fairy, Port MacDonnell & Eaglehawk 
> Neck) & perhaps taking advantage of the plight that the STS are in at the 
> moment. It's also interesting that there have only been a few Southern Giant 
> Petrels the whole year. I remember Southerns being more common than Northern, 
> particularly in the mid and later part of winter. Northerns seem to outnumber 
> them lately. Has anyone noticed a decline in SGP numbers, as opposed to NGP 
> numbers?-Kevin Bartram
>                          
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