Dear Birders,
I organised a private pelagic rip from Eaglehawk Neck, Tasmania, on February 7
on a boat called the "Big Pig" run by Stuart Nichols of Personalised Sea
Charters (03) 6250 3370. The boat is a 26ft game fishing boat with very good
visibility around the boat, is fast so it doesn't take long to get out to the
edge of the shelf. Stuart provided plenty of burley including lots of shark
liver and provided a very good service. The boat (at around $640 for the day
for 5 people max.) is more expensive than larger boats per head but avoids the
problem of rounding up 12 or more people if one wants to do some pelagic
birding. We had glorious weather and spray and rain were not a problem, in bad
weather the Big Pig might be a bit exposed as there is not a lot of cabin
space.
Bill Wakefield, Mike Double, Drew Fulton and I made up the party. Bill and Mike
are both very experienced pelagic birders and it was great to have their
expertise on board.
We weft Pirates Bay at 7:30 and returned at 3:30. Wind strength was between
around 3 and 7 knots all day with light cloud burning off to a clear blue day
late morning. We passed the Hippolyte Rocks on the way out to view the seals,
black faced cormorants, gannets and crested terns. Heading further out we
diverted towards a trawler which had a substantial flock of birds behind it and
followed the trawler for an hour or so.
We then went about 2 nautical miles past the shelf and burleyed for a couple of
hours with quite a number of birds coming past in limited numbers. Buller's,
Black Browed, Shy type and Wandering type Albatross all put in an appearance
for greater or shorter periods of time as well as a number of shearwaters. A
move further offshore did not appreciably change the number or assortment of
birds.
On the way home we diverted towards a large albatross resting on the water that
had a distinct black cutting edge on the bill. Thinking that this might well be
a Royal Albatross (which would have been a tick for me) we approached closely
assuming the bird would fly away. In fact it paddled around in circles for some
time with Bill and Mike debating whether it was really a Royal. The size and
black cutting edge seemed right but the head shape was wrong. Eventually it
opened its wings and there was a mottled section of upper wing feathers
indicating that it was in all Probability a Wanderer rather than a Northern
Royal.
There were a number of Fluttering Shearwaters on the way home that Bill
indicated was unusual. This concluded a very satisfactory pelagic.
Birds seen on the trip (in order seen)
Black Faced Cormorant
Crested Tern
Sooty Oystercatcher
Kelp Gull
Silver Gull
Australian Gannet
Sooty Shearwater
Short-tailed Shearwater
Common Diving Petrel
White-faced Storm-petrel
Black-browed Albatross
Brown Skua
Buller's Albatross
Shy Albatross
White-chinned Petrel
Buller's Shearwater
Yellow-nosed Albatross
Wandering (type) Albatross
Campbell Albatross
Fluttering Shearwater
White-headed Petrel
Grey-backed Storm-petrel
Giant Petrel (probably northern)
Pacific Gull.
Regards
Peter Marsh
PS For the record I have no financial interest in Personalised Sea Charters
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