Hi all, Had a great holiday with the folks and Carl Billingham on Lord Howe
Island last week. Just thought I would quickly post some of the seabird
sightings. The weather was fantastic all week and we managed to get out to sea
four times (3 times to Ball’s Pyramid and once 10km NW of the island). We went
out three times with Jack Shick and Ian Hutton and once with Greenback
charters. It was great being out seabirding with such enthusiastic,
knowledgeable and friendly guys. Very welcoming, as was everyone on the island.
I was particularly keen to see the dark and intermediate morph White-bellied
Storm-Petrels but whilst we saw hundreds of White-bellied Stormies during the
week we only had two brief views of fully dark morph birds and several mostly
dark morph birds with paler bellies. There were quite a few intermediate birds
but mostly to the lighter end of the spectrum.
The other seabird highlights were two White-necked Petrel (apparently quite a
regular visitor), a single Gould’s Petrel (relatively few records, maybe 5 or
6, but almost certainly a more regular and overlooked bird), Tahiti Petrel
(again only the 6th or so record, following a sighting the previous week, but
Ian Hutton suggested they are probably common in deeper water a bit further
from the island - he has seen reasonable numbers not far from LHI when
transferring to the island by sea), and a single Long-tailed Jaeger (
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