Hi Folks,
Got back this afternoon after a seawatch with Ray Gobbe from about 8.30am
until 3.30pm. SE strong winds occasional light to heavy showers. Waves from
ESE up to 2m swell. What a great day:
Shearwaters:
Wedge-tailed 1000s
Short-tailed 1000s
Sooty 10s
Flesh-footed +5
Fluttering 10s
Huttons 5
Buller's 2 Great views of 1
Streaked 3 Great views of 2
Skuas:
Arctic 10+ Excellent views
Pomarine 20+
Long-tailed 1
Others:
Curlew 1
Gannets 10s
Silver Gull 100s
Kelp Gull 2 adult
BB Albatross 1 imm.
Lastly but not least, when we were about to go home, I went to look at
Maroubra Bay and by natural eyesight spotted a huge fin about 1.5km away.
After getting Ray we saw the fin down to some 100m off the cliffs. The fin
height appeared to vary a lot but was up to about 0.7m high (using
Wedge-tailed Shearwater wing breadth -1m - as a comparison). In addition the
fin waved from side to side and was floppy - not a shark then. The animal
lolled about at or close to the surface on several occasions. At one stage
looking through the water below the fin revealed a very light colour. Ray
thought it might be a sunfish and when I got home and checked sunfish images
on google concluded that this is what it was.
Our best day seawatching so far and the weather is due to get even better
for seawatching over the next 3 days.
Cheers,
Graham Buchan
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www.birding-aus.org
birding-aus.blogspot.com
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