Dear Birding-aussers
The Pelagic trip from Rose Bay Saturday was as
expected, very quiet. North-west to Westerly wind,
overcast with a smatter of rain am, warm for time of
year (14-18 degrees), swell less than a metre. Birders
on board included Ted Nixon, Tania Ireton from
Melbourne, Jack Shapiro, Adrian O'Neill, Jon Irvine,
Kevin Vang and Wojciech Dadrowka, Jerry Demarco from
Canada and myself, plus some whale watchers.
In the harbour were Silver Gulls, a Great Egret landed
on Shark Island with 8 Masked Lapwings roosting there,
Pelicans, Great, Pied, Little Black and Little Pied
cormorants, 1 Crested Tern, an A.Raven and 3 Black
Duck. Out the heads where we saw the first Gannets we
motored south past Bondi and at 0740 saw 3
Black-browed Albatross (1 impavida and 1 juvenile -
3rd ?) and the first of 4 Great Skuas, looking for
whales reported off Coogee. Crested Terns and Silver
Gulls were more common and 2 pairs of Humpback Whales
were seen heading north (c.40m depth). Off La Perouse
at 0907 were 3 more Black-browed Albatross, on the
water eating a dead cuttlefish - all melanophris. Two
had very dirty faces, presumed from cuttlefish ink.
Then we headed out to sea.
It was very quiet bird-wise except for gannets until
we approched the shelf when Yellow-nosed Albatross
became fairly frequent, a few Providence Petrels, 3
Great Winged, 1 Fairy Prion and 1 Sooty Shearwater
which had a dangling leg (broken?) and very worn
plumage, and kept with us for around 2 hours.
On the way back to Sydney we ran into a large
scattered pod of Common Dolphins, then one very black
Northern Giant Petrel, 3 Fairy Prion, and a lone
Humpback breaching about 4 km from the Heads. Full
list of sightings below.
Black-browed Albatross melanophris 3 (3)impavida 2 (1)
Black-browed Albatross ? 1
Yellow-nosed Albatross 18+ (12)
Northern Giant Petrel 1
Great Winged Petrel 3 (1)
Fluttery Shearwater 2 (1)
Providence Petrel 15 (8)
Fairy Prion 4 (3)
Sooty Shearwater 1
Great Skua 4 (1)
Australasian Gannet 35+ (9)
Crested Tern 35+ (28)
Silver Gull - no count - common in-shore - few
in harbour
Australasian Pelican 3
Masked Lapwing 9 (8)
Great Egret 1
Little Black Cormorant 2 (1)
Little Pied Cormorant 3 (2)
Great Cormorant 1
Pied Cormorant 1
Australian Raven 1
Pacific Black-duck 3
Let's hope July is more lively!
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