Hi All, here is the amended version for last Saturday.
Location: Southport, Queensland.
Date: 18/2/2012
Vessel: 37ft Steber Monohull, MV Grinner
Crew: Craig Newton (skipper)
Pax: Paul Walbridge (leader & organiser), Glen Pacey, George Bradd, Rob
Morris, Brian Russell, Jon Norling, Brian Coates, John Reynolds, Stuart
Pickering, Steve Murray, Neil Harwood, Peter Jones, Bahriye Jones,
Marion Roper, Kay McLennan.
Weather conditions: A weakening ridge along the Queensland coast with a
trough moving west over the Coral Sea brought moderate to fresh S-SE
winds to the SEQ coast leading up to the Saturday. Light SW winds on
leaving the Seaway, swinging around to SE 15-20 knots by mid morning,
then dying down by late morning. Winds freshening again from the south
early afternoon. Moderate cloud cover for most the morning, fining up
later in the afternoon, with several north moving rain squalls out wide
away from the coast. Visibility good, maximum air temperature 27* C,
barometer 1016 hPa.
Sea conditions: Calm seas on 1 metre swell on leaving the Seaway, by
mid-morning rising to 1 metre seas on up to 2 metre swells. Sea-surface
temps. 25.4* C at the Seaway rising to 26.4* C at the Shelf-break and
widest drift point. EAC running at 1.5 nm out wide.
Summary:
Left the Seaway at 0600 hrs initially intending to head out to Jim*s
Mountain ENE of Southport but with the conditions slowing the vessel
down slightly opted to conduct the drift just into Slope waters some
24.5 nautical miles ENE of the Seaway. Crossed the Shelf-break at 0900
hrs and reached the first drift point at 0915 hrs. Continued to drift
until 1136 hrs then headed at a leisurely pace for home, arriving back
at the Seaway at 1550 hrs. Total duration of trip 9 hrs 50 mins.
Unlike two weeks earlier there was little trawler activity returning
outside the Seaway but one trawler did have some attending birds, mainly
Crested Terns but also several Wedge-tailed Shearwaters and a few
Flesh-footed Shearwaters. Headed out across the Shelf with little
sighted but at the 78 fathom mark a warm current line had a few birds
feeding in the shape of a few Wedge-tailed Shearwaters, a Flesh-footed
Shearwater and the first Pomarine Jaeger of the day in attendance.
On reaching the final drift at 0915 hrs it was several minutes before
the first birds arrived at the slick with a Great-winged Petrel
(Grey-faced) and a couple of Wedge-tailed Shearwaters appearing. For the
next hour a few more Great-wingeds, Flesh-footed, Wedge-tailed and a
solitary Hutton*s Shearwater arrived and surprisingly then the first
Tahiti Petrel of the day, one of only three for the day, a very low
count for February. Although new birds were still arriving and indeed
feeding right at the rear of the vessel, nothing new arrived save for a
solitary Fluttering Shearwater flyby. Headed back for home at 1136 hrs
and took it easy in case of finding any foraging parties.
Not much of note on the journey back with just a few Wedge-tailed
Shearwaters and a sole Flesh-footed Shearwater and Pomarine Jaeger
noted. However just 2 nautical miles out from the Seaway, large rafts of
feeding birds were noted just to the north and we headed back NE to
engage. There were several rafts of actively feeding, mainly
Wedge-tailed Shearwaters but also Hutton*s, Flesh-footed and at last,
Streaked Shearwaters, also the lone Arctic Jaeger of the day. We
generally kept the vessel to port of the feeding birds using the evening
sun to advantage and spent the next 20 minutes trying to gauge some sort
of count. For instance Brian Coates has sent a snapshot of the first
raft clearly showing 3 Streaked Shearwaters on the water & we seemed to
encounter more in each raft put to air but many of the birds as we
slowly motored NE along the line of rafts milled around and my final
count of 6 Streaked Shearwaters was the one I feel most comfortable
with, although probably conservative.
Species:
Wedge-tailed Shearwater * 1290 (1000)
Flesh-footed Shearwater * 18 (5)
Streaked Shearwater * 6
Fluttering Shearwater * 1
Hutton*s Shearwater * 10 (7)
Tahiti Petrel * 3 (2)
Great-winged Petrel * 5 (2)
Pied Cormorant * 1
Pomarine Jaeger * 3 (1)
Arctic Jaeger * 1
Crested Tern * 107 (100)
Silver Gull * 2
********************************************************************************
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
===============================
|
