SYDNEY PELAGIC REPORT - SATURDAY MAY 8, 2010
OVERVIEW
Regular readers of the Sydney pelagic reports will know that I always claim
that pelagic trips inevitably come up with something unusual and
interesting, no matter what. I suppose that this trip lived up to that claim
in the sense that the very low numbers of birds, the lack of anything
remotely rare and the complete lack of cetaceans is indeed unusual and
interesting! The positives for the trip were that the weather was superb as
were the sea conditions and nobody suffered from sea-sickness - so it was an
extremely pleasant day out on the ocean. I did have a suspicion beforehand
that it might not be a productive day since I knew that the shearwaters
would have departed for the winter and, with the warm water temperatures
still prevailing, the southern species might not yet be putting in an
appearance and this is how it transpired. The water temperatures had a
pattern that we had not experienced before starting at 20.0degC just out of
the heads, increasing to 21.4degC at the Ten Mile and then dropping to
19.8degC at Brown's Mountain. Then, amazingly, only about 4 miles east of
Brown's, the water temperature was back up to 22.8degC indicating some major
discontinuities in the eastern offshore current spiral - perhaps the birds
and sea monsters avoid areas of rapidly changing water temperatures?
We departed from Rose Bay at 7.05am and returned at 3.10pm and travelled in
sea conditions of 1.0m on a 1.0m swell and the sea dropped off after noon to
almost a flat calm. Winds were easterly 10 -15 knots in the morning and
eased right off in the afternoon.
TRIP SUMMARY
For the first time in memory, after seeing a couple of Australasian Gannets
at the heads, we travelled for about 10NM eastwards without seeing a single
bird or cetacean. Eventually a single Short-tailed Shearwater was sighted at
some distance and then a Black-browed Albatross flew past the boat and kept
on going. As we approached Brown's Mountain, a Yellow-nosed Albatross was
sighted as were two distant pterodromas (probably Providence Petrels). There
were no birds at all at Brown's (despite a large number of recreational
fishing boats being there) and so we kept on motoring east. When another
Yellow-nosed Albatross and a Wilson's Storm-Petrel put in an appearance, we
stopped and berleyed for a while but without much success with visits from a
couple of Providence Petrels, a Yellow-nosed Albatross and an odd Wilson's
Storm-Petrel. A further stretch of motoring produced a brief fly-by from a
Wandering Albatross (adult gibsoni) and a brief visit from a Shy Albatross.
Several flying fishes were seen in the warmer patches of water and our young
deck hand caught a nice Striped Tuna which was released.
On the way back we came across the only Fluttering Shearwater of the day
which, when flushed from the water, had difficulty taking off and then we
had the same experience with a Short-tailed Shearwater which also laboured
to get airborne. Further inshore, in what was now very calm water, we came
across another couple of Yellow-nosed Albatross, a Black-browed Albatross
and our second Shy Albatross of the day. The only hint of a rarity came
towards the end of the trip when Nikolaas Haas and I got onto a very
interesting but distant bird flying away (of course!). We compared notes on
structure, size, flight pattern and plumage and the nearest match that we
could make was a pale morph Wedge-tailed Shearwater - but we shall never
know!
BIRD LIST
(Note that the numbers in parentheses represent the maximum number seen at
one time)
Providence Petrel 2 (1)
Short-tailed Shearwater 3 (1)
Fluttering Shearwater 1 (1)
Wandering Albatross 1 (1) gibsoni
Black-browed Albatross 2 (1)
Yellow-nosed Albatross 6 (2)
Shy Albatross 2 (1)
Wilson's Storm-Petrel 8 (2)
Australasian Gannet 15 (6)
Crested Tern 24 (8)
Silver Gull 80 (20)
OTHER
Flying Fish 8
The next Sydney pelagic trip will be on Saturday 12 June, 2010 departing
from Mosman Ferry Wharf at 06.45am and Rose Bay Public Wharf at 07.00am.
Call Hal at 0411 311 236 to make a reservation.
Cheers
Roger McGovern
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