If the weather forecast holds, this should be a good weekend for seabirds
off the Sydney coast. This winter has been quiet so far, with just one good
weekend in the middle of June, but yesterday at Maroubra (in Sydney's
south-east) winds swung to the south at last, and brought in about a dozen
Great-winged Petrels, a number of prions, including a few which could be
indentified as Fairy Prions, a Brown Skua, and a Shy Albatross, which has
been very scarce so far this winter. Yellow-nosed and Black-browed
Albatrosses reach their maximum numbers about now, as do Brown Skuas, and
amongst the few highlights this winter, there have been hundreds of Gannets
around - passage in the last couple of hours before dusk can be spectacular
(nearly a thousand passed in an hour a couple of weeks ago). If the
predicted south-easterlies come in, this could be the best weekend of the
winter so far.
Rod Gardner
Birding-Aus is on the Web at
www.shc.melb.catholic.edu.au/home/birding/index.html
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