Yesterday afternoon, David Mitford and I spent again a few hours sea watching
from Magic Pt, Maroubra (about 10km south of the
Sydney CBD). The winds were moderate north-easterly throughout most of the
afternoon. With such conditions and the fact that there was cyclonic activity
during the week in north QLD and to a lesser extent in NZ, we thought this may
produce something very interesting off Magic Pt. This time last year, David and
I had good sighting of both White Tern and Grey Ternlet
close to Magic Pt. David also saw during the week from near here, another
White-necked Petrel and a few Wandering Albatrosses (one of each was seen
unusually on a fairly calm day).
However, it was not too be expected during our time there on
Sunday, but this does not lessen the chance that something extraordinary may still
turn up over the next few days off Sydney. However, we did score another
STREAKED SHEARWATER (one of my favourite of all sea
birds) amongst a moderate list of other summer sea birds. It appears now that
most of the Long-tailed Jaegers have left and making their journey now towards
the Arctic
circle. Same may also apply to some of the shearwaters. We
also saw that afternoon 2 groups of 5 Eastern Curlew (10 in total) making their
way up the coast close to shore.
There were also good sightings of a couple of pods of Common
Dolphins during the short period of time.
The species and minimum numbers seen from Magic Pt
this afternoon were:
Fairy Penguin (2 heard calling below Magic Pt)
Wedge-tailed Shearwater (50)
STREAKED SHEARWATER (1)
Fluttering Shearwater (2)
Australasian Gannet (55)
Little Black Cormorant (1)
Pied Cormorant (3)
Arctic Jaeger (3)
Pomarine Jaeger (13)
Silver Gull (150)
Crested Tern (40)
Mammals seen:
Common Dolphin (20)
Hopefully next weekend will bring
some more sea watching delights before all our summer friends must make their
journey back up north.
Edwin Vella
