Two weeks ago I took the family on an organised whale watching trip off
Sydney. About 3km off Long Reef we caught up with 4 Humpbacks and while
waiting to photograph a surfacing whale a large brown bird came flying low
and fast over the boat. I managed to fire off a few sots and thought at the
time it was a Jaeger. Later on looking at the photos it turned out to be a
Giant Skua. Terrific - a new tick.
Then over the last couple of weeks reports started coming in from Magic
Point to Long Reef of sightings of Brown Skua. I thought maybe I had the
wrong Skua but none of my Field Guides nor the Atlas makes mention of Brown
Skua. Is a Brown Skua another name for Great? A shame if it is because it
was a magnificent bird and do we really need another brown one. Or is it a
Sydney colloquial name thing - like "cossie"?
Incidentally the whale trip was fantastic and turned out to be a Pelagic
trip lite. A calm sunny day close sightings (within 100m) on the water and
in the air of up to 20 Albatross, Mostly Yellow-nosed and a few Black-browed
feeding on the cuttlefish. Also many Fluttering Shearwaters and off course
the Skua.
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