Today (11th June 2006), David Mitford, Stuart Pickering and I enjoyed
another superb sea watch at Magic Pt in Maroubra, (approx. 10 km south
of Sydney CBD) with strong southerly winds prevailing throughout the
day.
Again Great-winged Petrels were very numerous with at least 600 birds
passing Magic Pt (most birds heading north with the wind and up to 25
could be easily counted at one time by scanning the horizon from end to
end). Many of the Great-winged Petrels did come within 50 metres from
the coast and appeared to be all the race macroptera. Also great today
was great views of 5 individual Wandering Albatross of various plumages
as well as the other common species of Albatross. In actual fact one of
the Wanderer's may have been an Antipodean Albatross (a species I have
only seen a few times on the pelagic trips off Sydney/Wollongong.
According to some taxonomy this is a separate species of Alabtross). One
of the Shy Albatross seen had a whitish back and may have been an
individual moulting. Amongst at least 10 Giant Petrels seen, one was
identified as a Northern and I would say there would have been at least
one Southern amongst the other 9 Giant Petrels.
It was also a good day for cetaceans. One magical moment today was
watching a feeding frenzy of 3 Humpback Whales next to 20-30
Bottle-nosed Dolphins within a km from shore. Another 5 Humpbacks were
also seen including 2 breaching a number of times and there were also
more Bottle-nosed Dolphins also seen during the day. An added bonus to
sea watching! There were also several Albatrosses, Great-winged Petrels
and Terns attracted to the whales (or more likely the food they were all
after) as well.
Our list of sea birds and numbers for the 6 hours (10:30-4:30 pm) I was
at Magic Pt today included the following:
Fairy Penguin (2 seen)
Black-browed Albatross (80)
Campbell Island Albatross (2)
Yellow-nosed Albatross (30)
Shy Albatross (7)
Wandering Albatross (5) (including one possible Antipodean Albatross)
Northern Giant Petrel (1)
Giant Petrels other (9)
Great-winged Petrel (approx 600)
Hutton's Shearwater (2)
Fluttering Shearwater (10)
Australasian Gannet (100)
Little Black Cormorant (1)
Great Cormorant (4)
Pied Cormorant (2)
Silver Gull (100)
Crested Tern (30)
White-fronted Tern (3)
Being only early June and seeing great numbers and variety of winter
birds already, we eagerly await the peak of the season in July. We hope
to see other Pterodroma (Gadfly Petrels) and other petrels, species of
Prion and some of the other rarer Albatrosses as we have enjoyed in the
past by sea watching from the magnificent part of Sydney!
Edwin Vella
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www.birding-aus.org
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