Hi All, here is the report for Southports Saturday Pelagic;
Location: Southport, Queensland.
Date: 21/8/2010.
Vessel: M.V. Grinner.
Crew: Craig Newton (skipper).
Pax: Paul Walbridge (leader & organizer), Nikolas Haass, Raja
Stephenson, Brian Russell, Chris Wiley, Ken Mckeown, Glen Pacey, Andrew
Wood, Andrew Walter, Dave Stewart, Mary Macmillan, Marion Roper, Kay
McLennan.
Weather conditions: A high, over the southern Coral Sea and moving east
brought light SW winds to the coast early on, switching to southerly as
the day wore on. Generally light winds throughout the day, barely
reaching 10 knots. A virtually cloudless sky all day with excellent
visibility, maximum air temp. 23* C, barometer 1024 hPa.
Sea conditions: Light seas on a gentle swell on leaving the Seaway and
these conditions lasted until a north-south current was encountered
shortly after the Shelf-break whereon the seas increased to .5 of a
metre on a 1.5 metre swell. Later , when returning and back on the Shelf
the sea calmed somewhat again and became quite glassy. Sea-surface
temperatures, 18.4* C on crossing the Seaway, rising gradually to 21* C
halfway across the Shelf and reaching a maximum of 23.7* C at the widest
point.
Summary:
Left the Seaway at 0640 hrs and proceeded to Jim*s Mountain , approx.
31nm ENE of the Southport Seaway. Reached the final drift point at 0955
hrs and proceed to drift until 1245 hrs before heading for home. Arrived
back at the Southport Seaway at 1550 hrs, total duration of trip, 9
hours 10 minutes.
On leaving the Seaway, very little present save for numbers of
Australasian Gannets working just beyond the surf but fifteen minutes
out a lone trawler was encountered with mostly Silver Gulls and Crested
terns following but also a number of recently returned Wedge-tailed
Shearwaters. Continued out over the Shelf with very little noted except
for the odd gannet but also a few Hutton*s Shearwaters and the
occasional Wedge-tailed.
Arrived at Jim*s Mountain at 0955 hrs and proceeded to throw berley
over the back end. Very slow at first as with so little wind the scent
wasn*t carried but the slick had started to drift south of us and
after a while the first Wedge-tailed Shearwaters arrived followed
shortly by Wilson*s Storm Petrels. For the next hour or so that was
pretty much it with Wedge-tailed numbers starting to build up, with a
few extras such as Providence Petrels (very low numbers for this
species) and the odd Common Noddy and Hutton*s Shearwater. Just before
midday the first Black-bellied Storm-Petrel put in a belated appearance
quickly followed by the seasons first Tahiti Petrel. Over the next hour
more of both these species turned up and fed around the vessel, the
Tahiti Petrels being particularly ravenous, a couple of which flying
almost within arms length in order to get to the floating berley.
At 1245 hrs it was time to head for home with several Wedge-tailed
Shearwaters following in tow, gorging on the chicken mince now being
offered in the vessels wake. Apart from these birds which followed for
most of the way back, little else noted except for the occasional
Wilson*s Storm Petrel, Hutton*s Shearwater and Australasian Gannet.
Species:
Wilson*s Storm Petrel * 14 (3)
Black-bellied Storm-Petrel * 4 (2)
Wedge-tailed Shearwater * 189 (50)
Hutton*s Shearwater * 11 (5)
Tahiti Petrel * 5 (2)
Providence Petrel * 8 (2)
Australasian Gannet * 40 (25)
Pied Cormorant * 1
Common Noddy * 3 (2)
Crested Tern * 40
Silver Gull * 41
Cetaceans:
Humpback Whale - 14
Offshore Bottlenose Dolphin - 20+
Inshore Bottlenose Dolphin - 2+
Overall, a lovely Spring day out in the south Coral Sea & although
diversity was a bit low what species there were presented well. With the
water warming up it was great to have the Tahiti Petrels back after a 3
month hiatus and it would appear the Wilson's Storm Petrels have started
their southward movement, with the peak movement next month.
Next trip is on 18th September with several spots still available.
Contact Paul Walbridge on:
Ph(W) 07 3139 4258 (H) 07 3256 4124 E-Mail:
Cheers - Paul W.
********************************************************************************
This email, including any attachments sent with it, is confidential and for the
sole use of the intended recipient(s). This confidentiality is not waived or
lost, if you receive it and you are not the intended recipient(s), or if it is
transmitted/received in error.
Any unauthorised use, alteration, disclosure, distribution or review of this
email is strictly prohibited. The information contained in this email,
including any attachment sent with it, may be subject to a statutory duty of
confidentiality if it relates to health service matters.
If you are not the intended recipient(s), or if you have received this email in
error, you are asked to immediately notify the sender by telephone collect on
Australia +61 1800 198 175 or by return email. You should also delete this
email, and any copies, from your computer system network and destroy any hard
copies produced.
If not an intended recipient of this email, you must not copy, distribute or
take any action(s) that relies on it; any form of disclosure, modification,
distribution and/or publication of this email is also prohibited.
Although Queensland Health takes all reasonable steps to ensure this email does
not contain malicious software, Queensland Health does not accept
responsibility for the consequences if any person's computer inadvertently
suffers any disruption to services, loss of information, harm or is infected
with a virus, other malicious computer programme or code that may occur as a
consequence of receiving this email.
Unless stated otherwise, this email represents only the views of the sender and
not the views of the Queensland Government.
**********************************************************************************
===============================
To unsubscribe from this mailing list,
send the message:
unsubscribe
(in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
to:
http://birding-aus.org
===============================
|
