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'Halcyon days' were 14 days of calm weather when the Halcyon
nested at sea about the winter solstice. Weather good for weak stomachs
like mine, but diabolical for the obsessive compulsives that keen seabirders
must be.
I can empathise with Barbara Jones and all other organisers
about the problems associated with running pelagics. I hope all visitors
appreciate the effort behind the scenes to establish these on a regular
basis. I organised four trips from Southport in the early 90s as an
alternative to the tedious bay crossings that were part of the trips from Manly
[Brisbane not Sydney]. Three of these four were cancelled by
weather. After migrating to north Queensland, I then missed all of the
trips subsequently organised from there by Paul Walbridge with the Seaworld boat
!!
Even so, I was relieved that these trips did not produce much
that was different from my Coffs Harbour daze in 1974- 77, when I hitched about
90 times on local fishing boats. How I wish I'd been part of a group then,
with extra eyes to maximise the results. I must admit however, that many
of the fishermen had acute sight [despite their road-map eyes] that was often
helpful.
A group would also have helped to substantiate my
observations. It may seem amusing now, but in many quarters it was
tantamount to heresy to report Long-tailed Jaeger, Tahiti Petrel, Providence
Petrel, Buller's Albatross & Shearwater, White-bellied Storm-Petrel and
Northern Giant-Petrel.
At least there was less argument with the corpses that I
collected from beaches. My very first find was a Grey Ternlet at Long Reef
in 1967, a bird mentioned only in the back of my 1963 What Bird Is That ?
in two stark lines...' two records from
near Sydney ' . Invigorated by beginner's luck and the
gift of a reference collection of prion heads from Doug Gibson, I embarked on a
decade of beachwalking in NSW that mystified most normal people. In that
time I must have found about 15000 dead birds. At 48, the skin lesions on
my hands and varicose veins in one leg testify to my obsessiveness.
As you can see, tubenose fanatics are likely to have grown up
in peculiar circumstances. If they are less than perfect on your next
pelagic, put it down to a disturbed childhood.
Glenn Holmes
PO Box 1246 Atherton
Qld
4883
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