I tried sending this a few days ago: here's another go
Hi David,
I've put in many hours seawatching from land - over 2000 in fact, mostly
from Maroubra between 1995 and 2005. When I started, I don't think anyone
on the east coast was doing regular seawatches, so it was virtually
uncharted territory. (There were some excellent seabirders, but I think
most of them weren't doing land-based watches regularly). I made some
embarrassing misidentifications in my early watches, like claiming a
Yellow-nosed Albatrosses as a Buller's. But with time the differences
become easier to see. There's no substitute for putting in the hours and
perseverance. Underwing patterns are crucial, and in combination with head
pattern most species can be separated from land (at least going by the old
taxonomy). If they're reasonably close, then bill colour is another good
help. A lot of care has to be taken with head colour, though, as, for
instance, some Grey-headed albatrosses have virtually white heads, and some
Black-broweds (juveniles) have pretty dark heads. The distribution of the
grey on the head is a help. With time it becomes possible to identify them
at greater and greater distances, but some, especially of the newer
'splits', may remain impossible, or virtually so. This could be grounds for
giving it all up as too hard, but the really good thing is that it remains
a challenge for a long time, so it never becomes boring.
Any headland south of about Newcastle should turn up albatrosses in winter,
especially when there are strong southerlies or south-easterlies, but even
with offshore winds or little wind they can be seen at this time of year.
They occasionally turn up even in summer. Spring can still be good, with
Wanderers and Black-broweds especially often staying into November off
Sydney.
It's not true that albatrosses are purely pelagic birds. Off Sydney
Black-browed, Wandering, Shy and Yellow-nosed Albatrosses regularly come
close to land, often feeding off squid, which die off about this time of
year. Occasionally hundreds of Black-broweds or Yellow-nosed can be seen in
a day. Very occasionally a Royal, Grey or Buller's can be seen, but
probably not even annually. There are also a very few records of Sooty and
Light-mantled Sooty. If you go by the newer taxonomy, then the ID problems
get worse, but Salvin's, Campbell, Gibson's and and maybe Antipodean (but
I’m not convinced) can be identified from land. Also there is diurnal
variation: Black-broweds are commoner in the morning, and numbers tail off
during the day, whereas Yellow-nosed - the smallest albatross - tend to
come in later in the day, perhaps because of the competition for food from
the larger albatrosses. Wanderers and Shys can occur throughout the day,
though in much smaller numbers.
So strong southerlies or south-easterlies are best on the east coast, and
the birds will tend to fly into the wind, but with these winds, they'll be
banking away from land, so making it harder to see the underwing. The great
thing about Magic Point in Maroubra is that there's an old wartime shelter
there, so it's possible to keep reasonably dry and sheltered even in the
very worst weather. It's important to be able to hunker down, otherwise the
scope shake and rain or spray on the lenses will make things very
difficult. And a decent scope is virtually essential.
On the birds you saw:
* Pretty much all of them looked the same from above:
-- White/light head
-- Dark wings, sometimes not so dark on the back itself
-- White before the tail
-- Dark tail-tip
These are likely to have been Black-browed, Yellow-nosed and/or Shy, though
Shy is noticeably larger and greyer. Only Royal and Wanderers don't have
black backs/mantles.
* From underneath, most birds had nearly all-white wings with dark edges.
The width and neatness of the black edges are important: Black-broweds and
Yellow-nosed have relatively broad black edges, which are neat in the
latter, and irregular in the former. (I'll leave aside Campbell, Buller's
and Grey-headed - they're all rare, and it's probably best to sort out the
common ones first – though Cambell’s is probably not uncommon). Shys have
much narrower black margins on the underwing. There are often large numbers
of Shys south from around the NSW/Victorian border, but fewer around the
mid-NSW coast.
-- Some had more black at the tips of the wings than others.
This is probably age-related mostly: younger Black-broweds have more black
(as do Campbells of all ages).
-- Of these birds, the bill color was basically yellow/cream/ivory in
some and basically black in others.
Again to a considerable extent a function of age. Younger birds have darker
bills in some species.
-- My wife noticed that some of these birds were visibly larger than
others when viewed side-by-side. (I understand that size is a pretty
useless field mark unless you have something to compare to - but we
can say that these similarly marked birds came in two sizes.)
Sounds like Shys (the larger) against Black-broweds or Yellow-nosed.
-- Our tentative identification of these are Yellow-nosed (dark bill)
and Shy (yellowish bill).
But young Black-broweds have dark bills.
-- Using the scope on birds resting on the water made the basic bill)
colors clear enough and it was sometimes possible to see the yellow
line on the top of the Yellow-nose's bill. (Their bill is basically
dark, despite the name.)
This sounds right. Also Yellow-nosed peak in numbers on the east coast
earlier than Black-broweds - around early to mid-July off Sydney, whereas
Black-broweds peak in August.
* We saw at least one bird in flight that had a markedly different
underwing pattern with lots of black and some white in the middle of
the wing that we're tentatively identifying as a Black-browed
Albatross. We also saw a bird on the water that looked *exactly* like
a Black-browed. We've had the good fortune to visit one of their
larger accessible breeding colonies (Saunders Island, Falklands) so
this is a bird we have had a chance to spend time up close to. (A few
of our nesting Black-browed pictures from Saunders can be found at
http://www.wombatcountry.com/birds/albatross/index.html.)
This sounds like Black-browed. There is a lot of variation in the amount of
black on the underwing, partly age (younger birds more black, sometimes to
the virtual exclusion of white), and partly (sub-)species: Campbell have
relatively more black on the underwing, especially the secondary coverts in
the adults
* An albatross on the wing flies very differently to a Gannet. The
albatrosses seem to keep their wings stretched out while Gannets flap
a lot more. That's a pretty helpful general field mark (if accurate)
when viewing distant birds. Can someone more experienced comment on)
this?
Agreed. In addition they are differently shaped: albatrosses are longer
winged, have less pointed wings, and quite different head/bill proportions.
When they flap, it's slower and heavier than gannets. But in very high
winds, things can change.
* The under-wing pattern on the albatrosses is very visible and can
definitely sort the birds into at least two groups: "mostly white
underneath with black edges all around" and "lots more black than
white underneath."
But this doesn't always help with species, as young birds of several
species have the most black.
*Tracking birds in flight is hard with a scope but fun when it works.
This is largely a matter of practice.
And that's just the albatrosses: then there's the shearwaters and petrels
and the rest. The count for seabird species off Maroubra is now about 65 or
66 (I've lost track a bit since I left Sydney). This must make it one of
the best places to watch seabirds from land anywhere in the world (well, NZ
and Chile may have an argument with that.)
Cheers,
Rod
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