birding-aus

Nasty Northern Giant Petrels

To: "" <>, Kev Lobotomi <>, birding-aus threads <>
Subject: Nasty Northern Giant Petrels
From: martin cachard <>
Date: Mon, 4 Nov 2013 22:24:31 +1100
hey kev & nik,
going through my (limited compared to u guys) records, Nik's ratio between spp 
is about the same for me too.
maybe this has always been the case?? 
cheers Martin Cachard, Cairns 0428 782 808
 
> Date: Mon, 4 Nov 2013 03:15:56 -0800
> From: 
> To: ; 
> Subject: Re: [Birding-Aus] Nasty Northern Giant Petrels
> 
> Hi Kev,
> 
> Over the last 6 years I had 3 x more NGPs than SGPs along the East coast 
> (mainly Sydney & Wollongong).
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Nikolas
>  
> ----------------
> Nikolas Haass
> 
> Brisbane, QLD
> 
> 
> ________________________________
>  From: Kev Lobotomi <>
> To: "" <> 
> Sent: Monday, November 4, 2013 4:22 PM
> Subject: [Birding-Aus] Nasty Northern Giant Petrels
>  
> 
> On a few occasions lately I have witnessed how nasty the Northern Giant 
> Petrel can be. Firstly off Port Fairy on shelf on the 27th people aboard the 
> boat had 4 GPs (3 definite Northerns, perhaps 1 Southern) attacking a 
> Short-tailed Shearwater and drowning it. We later went over to check out the 
> corpse floating on the sea. 
> In addition to this I spotted a Northern GP off Cape Nelson yesterday 
> (3/11/13) about 10AM. There were heaps of Short-tailed Shearwaters offshore, 
> some sitting on the ocean. This of course is not unusual at the moment with 
> big wrecks about everywhere in SE Aust. The GP kept flying up to a STS 
> sitting on the water & jumping on it. The STS would either dive under the 
> water & evade that way, or fly off. This it did about 6 times before the NGP 
> actually jumped on a bird which was probably too weak to get away. It then 
> grabbed it and took off with it, then landed and attacked it's belly. The 
> poor shearwater was flaying it's legs and wings around. Eventually you'd 
> expect the NGP to start eating the thing. It did peck at it a bit, but then 
> abandoned the bird (not sure if it was dead, but it would have been mortally 
> wounded) & then proceeded to have a go at several other shearwaters on the 
> water. I got the feeling the NGP was acting like the Grim Reaper &
>  selecting the shearwaters th
> at were ready to die! 
> I have noticed that there have been Northern Giant Petrels hanging around 
> southern Australia (Cape Nelson, Port Fairy, Port MacDonnell & Eaglehawk 
> Neck) & perhaps taking advantage of the plight that the STS are in at the 
> moment. It's also interesting that there have only been a few Southern Giant 
> Petrels the whole year. I remember Southerns being more common than Northern, 
> particularly in the mid and later part of winter. Northerns seem to outnumber 
> them lately. Has anyone noticed a decline in SGP numbers, as opposed to NGP 
> numbers?-Kevin Bartram
>                           
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