> Andrew Stafford wrote:
> Good to see you getting into the seabirds in particular - as we say, real
> birders are seabirders!
Personally, I'd say that real birders are people who can spot shy and reclusive
birds without disturbing them.
I went on my first pelagic trip yesterday, so here is an account for people who
have yet to go birdwatching from a moving deck [not including "skywalks" and
lookout trees]. Paul Walbridge organised the trip from Southport, so I will
leave it to him to provide the details of the birds seen.
For those of you yet to go on a pelagic trip, one virtue is that it is a far
cheaper [and by that I mean less expensive] way of getting a tick than driving
interstate to see a house crow.
Anyhow we gathered at the Mariner's Cove section of the Southport Spit around
6.30 - it's a bit of an upmarket area, although the golden arches lower the
tone. There were a lot of well dressed people out early to poke around the
Saturday morning stalls surrounding the interior [walk through] avairy, so I'm
sure we provided a bit of a contrast as we passed through in search of the
toilets.
We were underway around 7 and saw our first raft of shearwaters about half a kay
out from the bar, and the feature petrel [which was a lot closer to shore than
expected].
[Everytime an interesting bird was sighted, the birding equivalent of "there she
blows" would go up, the boat would stop and the group would rush over to the
viewing side.]
It was also interesting to watch the shearwater's "ground effect" flying style
as they glided low over the waves. It is interesting to compare the style of
the "on shore" sea birds [like silver gulls] with the "off shore" birds [pacific
gulls, crested terns etc] and the "mid sea" birds like gannets and shearwaters.
Since I hadn't been out to sea for a long time in a "small boat" [compared to a
vehicular ferry] I was benchmarking the capacity of my stomach to handle
conditions and so hadn't made any special preparations [other than having an
easily digestable breakfast]. Sea conditions weren't too bad, little breeze and
a 1-2 metre swell.
As it happened, I turned out to be the designated chukar for the outing [perhaps
having a coffee with Trevor Ford at the golden arches while we waited was a
mistake]. I came down with a sudden bout of mal de mer about 90 minutes out,
felt better, went back to birding and had a second rapid onset about half an
hour later. All up, I had about half a dozen one minute sessions of "hove,
heave ho" over about a four hour period.
I didn't have any problems when we had a following sea on the way home [and I
think conditions had moderated a bit as well] but once upset, my stomach
couldn't handle birdwatching while we were heading into the swells. As an
example, I had locked the nockers onto a fleshy footed shearwater approaching
from the rear, and was discussing the differences between fleshy footed and
wedge tailed shearwaters with Andrew, when suddenly it was a case of "here comes
another one" [bugger]. Interestingly on two other occasions, my stomach decided
it was time just as the boat was stopping for a bird of interest [bugger].
As looking through binoculars was a risky business, I missed out on a few ticks,
but was able to get a good enough look at the feature petrel when we stopped at
the far point to feed the shearwaters. The deckhands had caught a striped tuna
on the way out and that was added to the shearwater feed. The long lensed
photographers had a happy time snapping the shearwaters [and I think they got a
few shots of the feature petrel, although it didn't approach as close as the
shearwaters]. It was interesting to watch the shearwaters' underwater skills
and to compare their approach with the dive bombers [terns/gannets] and the
submersibles [darters/cormorants].
My stomach was OK on the way back [in the following sea] but there weren't too
many birds of interest [other than the odd distant jaeger and frigate bird]. We
got back to Southport around 3.30 [there appeared to be some sort of fire around
Sea World - perhaps more people had been out with their matches]. By that time,
some members of the party had a lobster complexion courtesy of the UV light
reflected off the water [snow and sand are also effective reflectors]. Even
though I had been under cover virtually all the day, I also wound up with the
odd red patch in spots that I had missed with the sunscreen.
At the end of the day, I allowed myself three ticks [two shearwaters and one
petrel]. It was good to catch up with a few [non-anonymous] birding-aus
contributers and to bump into Sean Dooley while he is on his one-year quest. I
will continue my stomach management experiments in the autumn when quite a few
more ticks will be on offer.
Regards, Laurie.
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