NSW - Another good April sea watch off Maroubra, Sydney - 9th April 2006

["Mike Carter" <>]

Edwin,

When you say minimum number seen, what do you mean?
Is it an estimate or an actual simultaneous count? Reports of pelagic trips
usually quote an estimated number in normal type followed by the maximum
number present simultaneously in brackets which is thus the minimum number
encountered. In recent reports you just give a number in brackets. However,
earlier in the season when there were reports of large numbers of Streaked
Shearwaters inshore, if I recall correctly, just one unbracketted number was
given and that raised a few eyebrows.

My experience of watching from shore-based stations is that frequently birds
feed slowly inshore flying into the wind then move back downwind offshore
where because of distance and speed they are far less detectable. Thus there
is a risk of multiple counting.

Mike Carter
30 Canadian Bay Road
Mt Eliza    VIC     3930
Ph:  (03) 9787 7136
Email: