My original plan today (26th
February 2005) was to spend a few hours birding in Sydney’s Royal National Park. However as the weather conditions
appeared more suitable for sea watching than bush birding (as winds were
moderate southerly from the start of the day), I only had a quick half hour
look around the Royal in the early morning (having good views of a Southern Emu-wren and hearing both Chestnut-rumped
Heathwren and Tawny-crowned Honeyeaters amongst
others) and then headed quickly up to Maroubra which ended
up being a good decision.
I spent 8 hours today (from 10:30 am to 6:30 pm) sea
watching from Magic Pt, Maroubra (about 10km south of
the Sydney CBD) with moderate southerly winds prevailing for most of the day. Rod Gardner also joined me for part of the time
in the middle of the afternoon.
Today’s big highlight was seeing an unprecedented (?)
number of 64 LONG-TAILED JAEGER, which may be the highest number of this
species seen from land in Sydney! They appeared to be streaming
south thoughout most of the day as singles, twos or
small groups of up to 5 birds. While Rod was with me for 1 and ½ hours, we
counted 20 Long-tailed Jaegers during that time alone. (I also heard from David Mitford that about 15 Long-tailed Jaegers was
seen on today’s Wollongong Pelagic Trip). Pomarine
Jagers was also seen in high numbers from Magic Pt
today with 85 counted during the 8 hours but only 3 Arctic Jaegers were seen.
Before mid afternoon, I had more Long-tailed than Pomarine
Jaegers recorded, but the numbers of the Pomarine
Jaegers managed to catch up later in the afternoon.
Other highlights from Magic Pt today included good views of
a BULLER’S SHEARWATER, 2 very close in Sooty Shearwaters and a number of
Fleshy-footed Shearwaters.
Late this afternoon, a feeding frenzy of hundreds of
Shearwaters was seen with all 3 species of Jaeger present amongst them.
The species and minimum numbers seen from Magic Pt
this afternoon were:
Fairy Penguin (heard calling below Magic Pt as usual)
Wedge-tailed Shearwater (2,000)
Fleshy-footed Shearwater (19)
BULLER’S SHEARWATER (1)
Short-tailed Shearwater (25)
SOOTY SHEARWATER (2)
Fluttering Shearwater (5)
Australasian Gannet (44)
Little Pied Cormorant (1)
Little Black Cormorant (1)
Great Cormorant (2)
Pied Cormorant (1)
Arctic Jaeger (3)
Pomarine Jaeger (85)
LONG-TAILED JAEGER (64)
Silver Gull (200)
Crested Tern (24)
I would also like to note that David Mitford saw another Streaked Shearwater the
previous day from Magic Pt Maroubra but I
unfortunately missed seeing one today (possibly too busy counting Long-tailed
Jaegers!).
Edwin Vella
