Yesterday afternoon, David Mitford and I spent a few hours sea watching
from Magic Pt, Maroubra (about 10km south of the
Sydney CBD). But despite moderate south-easterly winds prevailing in the
afternoon, there were much few numbers of birds than expected under these
conditions.
During this time, we counted no more than a hundred
Wedge-tailed Shearwaters (unlike hundreds or even thousands on the previous
weekends). I even started to count more Fleshy-footed Shearwaters than Wedge-tailed’s in my first half hour. There was also only
one LONG-TAILED JAEGER amongst the 3 species of Jaeger seen, though I did not
expect to match my 64 seen last Saturday. There was also much few Pomarine Jaeger’s counted yesterday than on previous
weekends. However, there were more Australasian Gannets about which corresponds
to the same pattern with our sea- watching visits last year.
A Fur-seal was also seen loafing about a km from shore, and
there was lots of feeding flocks of birds comprising Silver Gulls (in their
hundreds) with a few shearwaters and other birds amongst them.
The species and minimum numbers seen from Magic Pt
this afternoon were:
Fairy Penguin (2 heard calling below Magic Pt)
Wedge-tailed Shearwater (70)
Fleshy-footed Shearwater (8)
Short-tailed Shearwater (13)
Australasian Gannet (75)
Little Pied Cormorant (1)
Little Black Cormorant (1)
Pied Cormorant (1)
Arctic Jaeger (1)
Pomarine Jaeger (18)
LONG-TAILED JAEGER (1)
Silver Gull (600)
Crested Tern (42)
Edwin Vella
