Today (Saturday,
13th March 2004) David Mitford, Simon Blanchflower,
Dion Hobcroft and myself enjoyed a wonderful time sea watching from Maroubra
(within 10km south of the Sydney CBD). David and I had our scopes on the sea for
most of the daylight hours today and we were joined by Simon and Dion for part
of the afternoon.
The main highlights today were a
GREY NODDY (seen quite close to the rocks), a WHITE TERN (within a km from the
shore) and 2 STREAKED SHEARWATERS (amongst a list of 7 species of Shearwaters
for the day). In total we saw 19 species of seabird (we were hoping to get one
more to exceed David Mitford?s previous record of 19 but we missed on seeing one
of the more usual seabirds, the Little Pied Cormorant which would have allowed
this to happen).
What appeared to be large floating
piece of cuttlefish about a km from the shore attracted a number of
Fleshy-footed Shearwaters and a few Pomarine Jaegers. At one time we also had
very close to shore, a group of 7 Pomarine Jaegers (one light phase bird in
immaculate adult breeding plumage with spoon shaped extensions to the tail) and
a few Wedge-tailed Shearwaters following a fishing boat heading south. All but 3
Australasian Gannets seen were either juv. Or Immature birds, with a few juv.
Gannets seen coming within a few metres from the rocks.
Both Common and Bottle-nosed
Dolphins were the cetaceans seen and later in the
afternoon.
Species and minimum
numbers seen were as follows:
Fairy Penguin (heard calling a few
times below the cliff)
Wedge-tailed Shearwater
(160)
Fleshy-footed Shearwater
(20)
Short-tailed Shearwater
(120)
Sooty Shearwater
(2)
STREAKED SHEARWATER
(2)
Hutton?s Shearwater
(3)
Fluttering Shearwater
(3)
Fluttering/Hutton?s Shearwater
(15)
Australasian Gannet
(50)
Little Black Cormorant
(2)
Great Cormorant
(2)
Pied Cormorant
(2)
Arctic Jaeger
(9)
Pomarine Jaeger (48) (one dark morph
bird was seen)
Kelp Gull (1
adult)
Silver Gull
(200)
Crested Tern
(50)
WHITE TERN (1)
GREY NODDY (1)
A top day
indeed!
Edwin Vella
