Hi birding-ausers,
Here's another occasional report from Maroubra, in eastern suburbs of
Sydney. This has been a good summer for seabirds, particularly February.
There is now a second regular seawatcher at Mistral and Magic Points, Dave
Mitford, which made up for my being away for half the summer. Here are some
of the highlights from December to February.
Bird of the summer was probably a Little Shearwater seen by Dave on 17.2, a
species which to my knowledge has hardly ever (never?) been seawatched from
land in NSW. He also logged a Grey Ternlet on 3.2 (with Dion Hobcroft), and
Sooty Terns on 1.2, 2.2, 3.2 and 5.2, with 10 individuals on 3rd. Another
first record for this locality was a White-necked Petrel on 6.2, which was
followed a few minutes later by a Streaked Shearwater (third record). A
final rarity for this part of the world was a Brown Booby on 16.2, the
fourth record for this locality in the past four years. It was the
prevalence of on-shore winds, particulary in the first half of February,
that was the cause of these records. There was a wreck of Sooty Terns all
along the coast in the first days of February, and Long Reef also had some
great seabirds in this period.
Some sub-rarities also put on good showings, with Dave recording six
Buller's Shearwaters in the period, and me another one on 6.2. There was a
very high count of 22 Long-tailed Jaegers going south on 11.2, with one
flock of eight amongst them. Pomarine Jaegers have also been seen in high
numbers, peaking at 30 on 6.2. Another species that is not seen from land
very often is Flesh-footed Shearwater, which has been showing regularly,
peaking at 87 on 11.2. Sooty Shearwater is another bird not often reported
from land, but on 15.2 there were five. Three Great-winged Petrels on 15.2
was also unusual, and Dave had five White-winged Black Terns in mid
January. One species that was down in numbers was Australasian Gannet. In
particular, very few immatures have been seen, normally much more frequent
than adults at this time of year.
29 species of seabirds were seen off Maroubra between December and
February. This compares very favourably with the pelagics in the Sydney
area this summer. Whilst some deep water seabirds are not likely ever to be
seen live from land, it's possible to get to grips with a surprising mix,
especially during strong onshore winds. And you don't get seasick.
In addition to three new seabirds for Maroubra (Little Shearwater, Grey
Ternlet and White-necked Petrel), Michael Hunter added Grey Shrike Thrush
to the land bird list on Christmas day, bringing the Maroubra Beach area
list of land and sea birds to 154 since 1995.
Rod Gardner
Birding-Aus is on the Web at
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