David Koffel and I spent a few hours (about 3-6:30 pm) yesterday afternoon (13th
February 2005) sea watching from Magic Pt, Maroubra
(about 10km south of the Sydney CBD).
The afternoon produced mainly light to moderate southerly
sea breezes which was good enough to bring lots of birds close to shore (most
birds seen where within 1 km from the shore) and with good afternoon light,
good views were obtained of all species present.
Unlike my last two sea watches the past couple of months,
there was not even one Streaked Shearwater to be seen but had fairly good views
of at least one LONG-TAILED JAEGER. A good number of Pomarine
Jaegers were also present with about 60 seen during 4:30-6:30
pm.
I reckon If I stayed a little longer, I would have expected to see well over a
100 by the rate they seemed to be appearing between 6 -6:30 pm. I was also
amazed to see one Jaeger soar very high (at least a few hundred feet in the air
and just visible through the scope) like what a Peregrine would do. Has anybody
seen a Jaeger do this before?
The species and minimum numbers seen yesterday were
as follows:
Fairy Penguin (heard calling below Magic Pt)
Wedge-tailed Shearwater (1,500)
Short-tailed Shearwater (4)
Fluttering Shearwater (33)
Australasian Gannet (25)
Little Pied Cormorant (1)
Little Black Cormorant (1)
Great Cormorant (4)
Pomarine Jaeger (62)
LONG-TAILED JAEGER (1)
Silver Gull (500)
Crested Tern (20)
Eastern Reef Egret (1 dark morph)
Edwin Vella
