Sydney pelagic Sat 8 June 2002
Dear Birding-aussers
The Pelagic trip from Rose Bay Saturday was as expected, very quiet. North-west to Westerly wind,overcast with a smatter of rain am, warm for time of year (14-18 degrees), swell less than a metre.
In the harbour were Silver Gulls, a Great Egret landed on Shark Island with 8 Masked Lapwings roosting there, Pelicans, Great, Pied, Little Black and Little Pied cormorants, 1 Crested Tern, an A.Raven and 3 Black Duck. Out the heads where we saw the first Gannets we motored south past Bondi and at 0740 saw 3 Black-browed Albatross (1 impavida and 1 juvenile - 3rd ?) and the first of 4 Great Skuas, looking for whales reported off Coogee. Crested Terns and Silver Gulls were more common and 2 pairs of Humpback Whales were seen heading north (c.40m depth). Off La Perouse at 0907 were 3 more Black-browed Albatross, on the water eating a dead cuttlefish - all melanophris. Two had very dirty faces, presumed from cuttlefish ink. Then we headed out to sea.
It was very quiet bird-wise except for gannets until we approached the shelf when Yellow-nosed Albatross became fairly frequent, a few Providence Petrels, 3 Great Winged, 1 Fairy Prion and 1 Sooty Shearwater which had a dangling leg (broken?) and very worn plumage, and kept with us for around 2 hours. On the way back to Sydney we ran into a large scattered pod of Common Dolphins, then one very black Northern Giant Petrel, 3 Fairy Prion, and a lone Humpback breaching about 4 km from the Heads. Full list of sightings below.
Black-browed Albatross melanophris 3 (3)impavida 2 (1)
Yellow-nosed Albatross 18+ (12)
Northern Giant Petrel 1
Great Winged Petrel 3 (1)
Fluttery Shearwater 2 (1)
Providence Petrel 15 (8)
Fairy Prion 4 (3)
Sooty Shearwater 1
Great Skua 4 (1)
Australasian Gannet 35+ (9)
Crested Tern 35+ (28)
Silver Gull - no count - common in-shore - few in harbour
Australasian Pelican 3
Masked Lapwing 9 (8)
Great Egret 1
Little Black Cormorant 2 (1)
Little Pied Cormorant 3 (2)
Great Cormorant 1
Pied Cormorant 1
Australian Raven 1
Pacific Black-duck 3
Let's hope July is more lively!