• Saturday 22nd November 2014 SOSSA PELAGIC TRIP, WOLLONGONG, NSW, AUSTRALIA.

    Here's a list of what was seen from the Sandra K outside the harbour on Saturday 22 November. It uses the BARC Australian Checklist (v2014 July based on IOC v4.2) for taxonomy, nomenclature & order of species and gives fairly conservative numbers. For the commoner species the numbers are estimates. There's also a .jpg file from Google Earth showing our route.


    Risso's Dolphin

    Leaving at 07.10 hrs, we travelled out to the shelf edge then turned NNE following the edge to 34° 30' 54" S; 151° 16' 36" E, 35.4 km ESE of Wollongong Harbour, in 300m+ pelagic waters, where we began slowly motoring in circles while chumming, 11.06-12.01 hrs, by which time we were 888m away at 34° 30' 26" S; 151° 16' 47" S. We then turned back in travelling to 34° 27' 50" S; 151° 04' 38" E, 16.3 km ESE of the harbour in 120m+ shelf waters, where stopped and chummed, drifting 1.4 km WSW to 34° 28' 14" S; 151° 03' 52" E, 13.37-14.21 hrs, before continuing back in to the harbour, arriving at 15.45 hrs.


    Arctic Skua harassing Crested Tern

    Low swell of 1-1.5 m in the morning, easing as the wind dropped. Sea temperature 19° inshore, 21.4° at the shelf edge.

    Maximum number seen at any one time in brackets

    088 Black-browed Albatross 2+ (1) adult or subadult
    859 Campbell Albatross 1 (1) adult
    Black-browed/Campbell Albatross 10+ (9) immatures
    091 Shy Albatross 3 (2) includes 2 adult & 1 imm.
    075 Great-winged Petrel 5+ (2) gouldiae
    917 Black Petrel 1 (1)
    069 Wedge-tailed Shearwater 50+ (25)
    071 Short-tailed Shearwater 20+ (10)
    913 Hutton’s Shearwater 1 (1)
    104 Australasian Gannet 6 (3)
    096 Great Cormorant 1 (1)
    125 Silver Gull 75 (30)
    981 Kelp Gull 2 (2) adults
    115 Greater Crested Tern 60+ (30)
    945 Pomarine Skua 5+ (2)
    128 Arctic Jaeger 3 (1)
    933 Long-tailed Jaeger 2 (2)



    Mammals
    We had excellent views of a pod of c. 8 Risso's Dolphin as well as seeing a couple of Common Dolphin, a large sunfish, and a fur seal.

    Cheers

    Graham